Vulgar History - Women Behaving Badly, part 2： She Poisoned Her Enemy In Jail (Rerelease)

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00:00:30.000 hello and welcome to vulgar history of feminist women's history comedy podcast my name is ann

00:00:44.940 foster and this is a very special episode what we've been doing and what we will be continuing

00:00:49.680 to do for the next little bit is revisiting season one and with a new understanding of these

00:00:56.220 people. And this is one that I'm really glad to have the opportunity to revisit. We're talking

00:01:00.500 about the one, the only, Tits Out Frances Howard. And I mean, what an impact she has had on this

00:01:06.960 podcast and everything. This is the second ever episode of Vulgar History. Her legend,

00:01:13.060 her tits out ways. The listeners of this podcast, you voted yourselves to be called the Tits Out 0.99

00:01:19.460 Brigade. I end every episode with, you know, keep your pants on and your tits out. Like 1.00

00:01:24.840 Frances Howard merch is in the merch store. She's really an icon for us. Whenever I come across her

00:01:32.480 in a book, like for instance, there's this newish book called The League of Lady Poisoners,

00:01:37.680 which is a gorgeous book, by the way, written and illustrated by Lisa Perrin. It's a beautiful

00:01:42.760 looking book. The illustrations are a huge part of it. And I was just kind of, at first, when I

00:01:46.280 first got a copy, I was flipping through it to be like, oh, who's in here? Are there any of the

00:01:49.080 vulgar history people? And I stopped as soon as I saw her drawing of Frances Howard, like complete

00:01:54.180 with like cleavage lines. I was just like, is that Frances Howard? I get so excited when I see,

00:01:59.780 I know her portrait is up in the National Gallery in London. I interviewed Rosie Hart

00:02:04.440 a few months ago about her book, The Royal Wardrobe. And I was really excited Frances

00:02:08.440 Howard was in that book. So I could talk to her about it. And significantly, I also in like,

00:02:14.560 I want to say 2021, I interviewed a novelist named Lucy Jago, who wrote a novel that's called

00:02:20.100 Annette for Small Ficious, which is, I feel like if I was making curriculum, like a vulgar

00:02:25.360 history curriculum, like required reading, that would for sure be on there. That was the first

00:02:29.220 author interview I ever did. And it's a novel, comma, and Lucy did something like eight years

00:02:35.500 worth of research to get ready to write this novel. She knows more about Francis Howard than

00:02:39.520 anyone. And I was so excited to talk to her and reading her novel and then talking with her. I

00:02:43.680 learned more about Francis Howard and, you know, such that I wanted to update this episode. And

00:02:49.120 then the connections of of people in the story that we've done episodes about later on like

00:02:55.200 so i'm gonna i'm gonna say a few thoughts now then we'll get to the episode itself and i'll

00:03:01.280 pop back on for like a whole lot of corrections omissions clarifications and just a whole lot

00:03:08.100 more tits out information so first i just wanted to give you before you listen to this episode which

00:03:13.960 is from, which was recorded in 2020. The audio has been recently cleaned up by our magician

00:03:20.020 of editing, Christina Lumagi, our editor of Vulgar History. Just to make the audio sound

00:03:25.180 more consistent with the later episodes are, you know, the first season of Vulgar History,

00:03:28.460 I was really very much figuring out what I was doing. How does this work? How does the

00:03:31.500 microphone work? And so I know the audio quality of the early ones is not quite the same as

00:03:35.820 the later ones. Like somebody told me, like they figured out, okay, they need to listen

00:03:39.340 to the earlier episodes on their headphones. Like they can't play it in the car. Like the

00:03:43.020 audio is just too muddy or whatever. Anyway, improved audio. So we're going to hear that

00:03:46.760 episode. But before we do that, a couple of things I'll tell you beforehand. So first of all,

00:03:51.620 just in terms of people who are mentioned in this episode, who have connections to people

00:03:55.300 who I later do episodes on. So Frances Howard was married twice. Her first husband is named

00:04:00.760 Robert Devereaux and his parents. So his father was named also Robert Devereaux because people

00:04:08.940 in like Tudor and Stuart England, just like a name repeat. But anyway, so the first Robert

00:04:14.040 Devereaux, his dad was the son of Latice Knowles, who we talked about in an episode very memorably, 0.95

00:04:21.260 who is quite a tits out lady herself. And Francis is the same guy, Robert Devereaux Jr.,

00:04:26.620 Francis's first husband. His mother was Francis Walsingham. And if you're like,

00:04:31.420 wasn't Francis Walsingham a man? Yes. So Francis Walsingham with an I at the end was the super

00:04:38.600 spy, William Cecil's spymaster in the Mary Queen of Scots saga. He had a daughter who he called

00:04:44.900 Frances with an E, Frances, the female spelling, I guess, which is just like, cause it like the

00:04:51.540 number of name duplications in this era. And for a father and daughter, like for the same name to

00:04:55.840 cross gender, it's just like, I'm so excited when someone has any other name, you know,

00:05:00.680 Ferdinando Stanley will always be a legend to me for that reason. Latisse as well. Anyway,

00:05:04.440 So Francis's first husband, like those are his, that's his ancestry. His mother is Frances Walsingham and his, his grandmother on the father's side is Latice Knowles. The king in this story is James the first slash sixth, who is Mary Queen of Scots' adult son. You know, we first talked about him on this podcast in that one panel graphic novel when Darnley was exploded. And he was a little baby being like, avenge me, oh Lord.

00:05:31.900 And then he grew up to be this just like shitty guy who, you know, he's the one responsible for the King James Bible. He translated it, inserted a bunch of misogyny and stuff about his like hyper fixation on witches. Anyway, he sucks. That's who the king is in this. His wife, the queen, is Anne of Denmark, who we have also later done an episode on. And we'll talk about her and after the episode, just how much of a tits out legend she was. 0.96

00:05:56.060 and other, other people involved in this. I just want to mention there's this upcoming

00:06:02.440 mini series that's going to be on Hepburn. Hepburn is here. She's my cat. If you haven't

00:06:08.940 listened to this podcast before, she was just about to walk across the like mouse pad of my laptop,

00:06:13.440 but she did not. Anyway. Anyway. So there's going to be this stars mini series called Mary and

00:06:20.700 George with Julianne Moore that's about George Villiers, who is one of the favorites of King

00:06:28.060 James. So King James's favorite was Robert Carr, who was Francis Howard's second husband,

00:06:32.880 memorably, but then he was supplanted by George Villiers. So anyway, George Villiers mentioned

00:06:37.660 this as well. And then also what I want to say is that if you want to read and learn more about

00:06:44.000 Francis Howard. It's about Francis Howard, the whole affair. The best nonfiction book that I've

00:06:51.100 come across, and this was a recommendation by Lucy Jago, is The Trials of Francis Howard by

00:06:55.500 David Lindley. It's kind of the best, I don't want to say objective because no history book is

00:06:59.660 objective, but it's the least, it's looking at the story from a point of view that's not assuming 0.52

00:07:05.280 that Francis Howard is just a whore, but like being like, why are they going after her? Like 0.93

00:07:10.200 what actually went on here? So anyway, it's the most fair version of it. The Trials of Francis

00:07:14.720 Howard by David Lindley. And then also the novel Annette for Small Fishes by Lucy Jago really

00:07:19.000 imagines Francis's story even better. And part of what Lucy's research found is that consistently

00:07:23.880 in letters and stuff, her family called her Frankie, which is a great name. Anyway, so here's

00:07:29.520 the original Francis Howard episode. So we can all get on the same page, remember what her whole deal

00:07:33.860 was. And then I'll be back afterwards with a whole lot of corrections, additions, omissions,

00:07:39.920 and more information about Francis Howard. So yeah, I, current era Anne, will be back to talk

00:07:46.480 to you in like approximately 60 minutes. Take it away, Anne of the past.

00:07:55.280 Let's just get into it, I guess. Today we're looking at the story of a woman named

00:07:59.740 Frances Howard. She was born in 1590. So this is basically the Stuart era. So this is like

00:08:07.660 after there was the Tudors, then there was the Stuarts. So it's like shortly after Queen Elizabeth

00:08:14.140 whole thing is when this whole situation is going on. And the thing about Frances Howard is I am

00:08:21.160 so obsessed with her. I love her whole story. I love her whole aesthetic. I love everything about

00:08:27.240 her and so I've read about her a bunch already and today I was thinking like oh I'm just gonna

00:08:32.860 see like what other podcasts are talking about her and maybe I was like not searching well

00:08:36.620 but I feel like I'm good at searching and I couldn't find any podcast talking about her

00:08:40.600 which is just like I mean I'm here offering the service of just like making this podcast about her

00:08:47.160 because everybody should know her story it is an amazing story when I post this podcast episode

00:08:53.720 I'm going to put a picture of her, like a portrait, like painted while she's still alive.

00:08:57.720 So you can all see what she looked like. And the thing is, I affectionately have come to think of

00:09:01.820 her and just reminder that this podcast is called Vulgar History. So there might be some vulgar 0.97

00:09:08.780 language used and I'm about to say a vulgar word. And that word is tits because she is tits out 1.00

00:09:14.800 Frances Howard. If you look at the portraits of her, like there's nothing else anyone could 0.99

00:09:19.340 possibly call her it's not just like oh this was an era where women wore like low-cut dresses like

00:09:23.840 no if you look at portraits of literally any other women from this time period which is the early 1.00

00:09:29.020 1600s like francis howard is the only one who's like entire chest cavity her like entire decollete 1.00

00:09:38.380 it's like tits out like there's no nipples in these portraits but that's just because they're 0.97

00:09:44.060 portraits that were painted and not photographs like she her entire chest is on display in every 0.99

00:09:49.580 portrait you can find of her including when she's an older person spoiler she becomes an older

00:09:54.200 person including when she's grieving like spoiler she is in mourning at one point she's just like 0.97

00:10:00.400 it's just glorious like she just like is into her breast area and she is just like tits out 0.98

00:10:07.480 Francis Howard and that is also how she lived her life just tits out and this is like I can't 0.97

00:10:13.040 it there's there's a lot to this story there is a lot to the story the scoring is going to be

00:10:18.080 pretty exciting i think so francis howard she was born in 1590 um her father was called lord

00:10:25.340 thomas howard and i should say her last name was howard as in catherine howard as in henry the

00:10:30.900 eighth fifth wife francis and catherine aren't closely related really because the howards were

00:10:38.000 this super powerful, influential family in England at around this time. But like everybody in the

00:10:43.460 family had like 17 children and those children had 17 children. So basically that's the lineage

00:10:49.080 we're dealing with. It's a similarly powerful family. So Thomas Howard was married to a woman

00:10:55.160 who was the Duchess of Norfolk. So Frances was in royalty, but she was a noble woman. So she was

00:11:02.060 rich her parents had titles and so as per in this time and place what that means is that the whole

00:11:09.520 point of her was to grow up and marry somebody that would be beneficial to her family and that

00:11:14.460 would bring money and prosperity and make hopefully more power to their family and so in 1604 when

00:11:22.780 Francis was if you're keeping track she's born in 1590 1604 she is 14 years old and she got married

00:11:30.740 to a 13-year-old boy named Robert Devereaux. So I talked about this briefly in the last episode

00:11:36.940 about Carolina Brunswick, but there's this sort of assumption, stereotype that people in places

00:11:44.020 like England in the 1600s got married when they were like 12, and then they had, you know, 17

00:11:49.400 children, and then they like retired when they were 20, like the lives were short, etc, etc.

00:11:53.560 There's a lot of fallacies in that, including the fact that people didn't actually die young

00:11:58.260 that much more it's just the the average age of death looks low because so many children died

00:12:04.380 anyway getting married at age 14 is not usual but also when you're married when you're that young

00:12:10.820 it's not like okay go off like have a house be adults now it's like you often people got betrothed

00:12:16.600 when they're that young or they got engaged when they're that young in this case she got married

00:12:20.520 when she was that young but no one expected them to like run off and start acting like married

00:12:24.860 people. Oh, and I should also mention, so they got married. Robert Devereaux was also from a

00:12:30.060 powerful family. So I was just going to say, Robert Devereaux, we need to explain about him

00:12:34.080 a little bit. He's one of several men who are going to be included in this story. So Robert

00:12:41.460 Devereaux, 13-year-old husband of Francis Howard, is the son of a man who is also named Robert

00:12:50.300 Devereaux, who was Queen Elizabeth's favorite towards the end of her life. So Queen Elizabeth

00:12:56.080 lived for quite a while, all things considered. And she got older and older and older, but she 0.90

00:13:01.400 sort of like in a reverse Leonardo DiCaprio situation, the men who she liked kept always

00:13:06.500 being sort of younger men. So the older Robert Devereaux was Queen Elizabeth's favorite for a

00:13:12.080 while, and then this Robert Devereaux is the son of that person. Just bear in mind as well, in 1601,

00:13:22.520 so three years before this teenage wedding happened, the older Robert Devereaux was executed

00:13:28.340 for treason because he tried to overthrow the government. So like things are not, it's not like

00:13:33.220 a calm time in the world generally. Francis, Francis Howard, Robert Devereaux got married,

00:13:40.880 but they didn't actually consummate the marriage because they were very young children.

00:13:46.700 And also everybody knew that it was dangerous for 14-year-olds to get pregnant.

00:13:51.260 And they wanted to wait until Frances had like grown up and matured a bit. 0.68

00:13:55.540 So she was able to do that.

00:13:56.780 Basically, they were married, but like a marriage is not official until it is consummated.

00:14:02.180 So they just sort of like waited a few years while that was happening.

00:14:06.740 Robert Devereaux, 13-year-old boy, just went off for sort of like a gap year.

00:14:10.880 just like touring around Europe. And he was away for two years. And when he came back,

00:14:17.160 Frances basically did everything she could to never be alone with him ever. And so you might

00:14:22.480 think, well, isn't this the point? Like, aren't they now? Like, what would they be? 16 and 14 or

00:14:28.800 whatever. Anyway, she didn't want to be alone with him partially because he had contracted smallpox

00:14:33.620 during his trip and she didn't want to catch smallpox and die. And also because while he was

00:14:38.960 away. She had fallen in love with someone else. So the person who she had fallen in love with

00:14:45.060 was called also Robert. Literally every man in the story is called Robert. Basically it's going

00:14:50.820 to be complicated. The other man who she fell in love with is called Robert Carr, the Earl of

00:14:55.900 Somerset. So we're just going to call him Somerset to tell him apart from Devereaux, which is what

00:15:02.020 we're going to call him as well. So Somerset was around Francis's age, just a few years older,

00:15:08.400 and he wasn't from a noble family. I mean, people from noble families didn't tend to hang out with

00:15:15.400 people from not noble families. So the thing was he had elevated himself basically. So while Francis

00:15:20.260 was off getting married as a young teenager, Somerset was a teenager and he was a page in

00:15:26.220 Edinburgh, which means basically, I think, you know, like this sort of person who would like go

00:15:30.660 and get a glass of wine for somebody more important, et cetera. While he was doing this,

00:15:36.040 He made friends with a writer whose name was Thomas Overbury. And Thomas Overbury was not very important or influential himself at the time, but the two of them just kind of hit it off. They became super great friends.

00:15:49.460 in this sort of like when there's two people who are friends there's often the one who's sort of

00:15:53.940 like the main one and the one who's sort of the sidekick and in this situation somerset was the

00:15:59.520 charismatic ambitious one and overbury was kind of the like behind the scenes sort of quieter sort

00:16:06.340 of person so somerset made a great impression on the king who at this point was king james the

00:16:14.200 first of England. And we'll get into that in a bit, what Somerset did and why the two of them

00:16:20.240 hinted off. But basically, Overbury supported him. He thought, this is great. My BFF is friends with

00:16:27.060 the king. This is great for everybody. Somerset became one of the most influential people at

00:16:31.500 court with Overbury as his hype man, sort of supporting him. So how did he meet the king?

00:16:38.580 So in 1607, which is the same year that Devereux left to go in his gap year after the teenage wedding, Somerset was at a jousting match. We all know what jousting is. It's this wildly dangerous, quote unquote, sport where knights put on their armor and then they race towards another knight, also an armor on a horse, and then you like poke at each other with your sticks.

00:17:01.760 somerset broke his leg during a jousting match which is just like like in the first hand like

00:17:08.080 it's 1607 medical care not amazing but also it wasn't so bad there's like okay doctors around

00:17:15.260 and stuff and so the king king james was like oh my god this poor extremely handsome young man

00:17:21.040 has just been injured i the king i'm just gonna like nurse him back to health because

00:17:26.120 that's just the sort of King I am slash King James I, kind of like his aunt, Queen Elizabeth,

00:17:33.760 just really liked really young, hot looking men. So basically they like bonded in sort of like a

00:17:39.860 soap opera-y way where Somerset was like convalescing and King James was, I don't think

00:17:44.580 he was like personally tending to him, but I'm sure he'd check in on him all the time and they

00:17:48.240 just like got to be quite close. And Somerset became James's favorite. The King loved him so

00:17:55.420 much that he knighted him. He made him a knight, called him the Viscount Rochester, hired him as a

00:18:01.520 privy counselor. So this is just like every good thing happening to him. So the thing is that King

00:18:08.640 James was easily swayed by who he liked and who he didn't like. He wasn't looking at things like

00:18:16.480 very objectively. He'd just be like, who's my favorite person? Great. I'm going to make that

00:18:20.080 person like the archbishop or whatever. And so since that was his personality, getting back to

00:18:24.980 Francis of it all. The Howard family were like, okay, so this is the king's personality. Like,

00:18:31.300 if he likes you, he'll do nice things for you. So how can we make him like us, the Howard family?

00:18:37.520 And so the thing is that by now, so again, Robert Devereaux is off just like getting smallpox

00:18:43.380 on mainland Europe. Somerset is here in England, and he and Francis have met each other at the

00:18:51.140 court because she's a noble woman and he's the king's favorite. And they basically totally fell

00:18:56.320 in love. And so Francis's family was like, oh, okay. So our little baby Francis has fallen in

00:19:04.020 love. She's captured the heart of the king's favorite. So this is great. Like, how can we use

00:19:07.980 this relationship between this man and this woman to help bring more power to us, the Howard family?

00:19:14.720 And so ideally what they would do is marry Francis to Somerset, but they can't do that

00:19:20.720 because she was still married basically to Robert Devereaux. But the thing is that she and Robert

00:19:26.660 Devereaux had never consummated their relationship. And if you haven't consummated your relationship,

00:19:31.920 and I feel like this might even be true now, you've grounds for an annulment. You can say like

00:19:36.180 it was never a real marriage. So basically, Francis is like, this is great. I'm just going

00:19:41.160 to get my marriage to Robert Devereaux annulled. And then I can marry my true love, Somerset,

00:19:46.760 a man who is himself in the midst of like a love triangle with potentially Thomas Overbury

00:19:54.300 and the king. So that's a little love triangle, those three men, Somerset, the king, and Overbury.

00:20:00.900 But then Somerset is in love with Francis. And then Francis is still married to Devereux. This

00:20:06.000 is like a five person, like love quintangle. I'm not sure what the word would be when there's five

00:20:14.800 people. So Frances is like, this is great. This is fine. I'm going to get my marriage annulled.

00:20:19.580 I'm going to marry this man who I love, who is Somerset. Her family was like, this is great.

00:20:23.520 She's going to get this marriage annulled. She's going to marry Somerset. And then we, 0.63

00:20:26.180 the Howard family are going to get all this power and influence. But meanwhile, Somerset's best

00:20:31.820 friend, Thomas Overbury was just kind of like, this seems like questionable. The Howard family

00:20:37.220 had a reputation for being like maybe overly ambitious or being sort of like cutthroat,

00:20:42.000 sort of like little finger from game of thrones if he had a family with like hundreds of people

00:20:47.740 in it so overbury was just like i feel like somerset might be trapped in some sort of like

00:20:52.700 the web of this like seductress slash also overbury was maybe jealous that somerset was now

00:20:59.760 in love with francis because overbury maybe had been in love with somerset slash maybe they were

00:21:05.580 sleeping together too i mean a lot of things might be going on here but one of the things

00:21:11.620 that Overbury mentioned is that he was concerned. And this is like, seems to me looking at this

00:21:17.880 from the 21st century in Canada, reading about what happened centuries after it happened,

00:21:25.380 that Overbury was jealous that Francis had taken all of Somerset's attention away from him.

00:21:32.520 Francis was also from this like notoriously conniving family, but also I think Overbury

00:21:36.720 was just like jealous like basically and so he sort of coached this in saying like oh i'm just

00:21:43.480 concerned because francis has a reputation for immodesty quote unquote which like if you look

00:21:49.560 at the portraits of her i i'm sure she had a reputation for immodesty because basically 1.00

00:21:54.700 the tops of her dresses were just sleeves and then like waistband like her breasts were just like 0.98

00:22:04.060 voila, constantly, all the time, look up any portrait of her. That's how you know it's a

00:22:09.680 portrait of her. So basically, Overbury was like, I don't trust this woman, tits out Frances Howard, 0.98

00:22:15.740 she's just like a bit extreme. And I feel like I just want to get back to just when things were 0.92

00:22:20.480 like me and Somerset, and we were bros and things were great. So he's a writer, remember,

00:22:26.000 Thomas Overbury. So he published a poem called A Wife. And it was basically sort of like,

00:22:32.900 like a 17th century sort of like incel manifesto where he just sort of like described where he was

00:22:39.220 like here's what an ideal wife should be like like number one like ideal wife she should have

00:22:45.060 dresses that cover her breasts she should be like nice and quiet and not be called francis and etc

00:22:52.340 etc so it was basically a subtweet trying to get francis to back off and for some reason to realize 0.83

00:22:58.720 like, oh my God, I have been fooled by this like femme fatale. What am I doing with Frances? Like

00:23:03.600 I'm going to break up with her. But guess what? That did not happen, but it made Frances and

00:23:09.660 Somerset want to get married even more. And so Overbury was like, well, what can I do to stop

00:23:15.240 my friend from making what seems to me like a terrible mistake? And this is like, if you,

00:23:20.260 here's my unsolicited advice for just like the world. If your friend is with somebody who's

00:23:25.840 terrible you can tell your friend the person is terrible but if your friend doesn't listen to you

00:23:31.480 like what you should not do is like publish a poem and then you should also try to not like actively

00:23:37.840 break up your friend and this person i mean maybe there's situations where you should do that but

00:23:43.300 mostly like just let your friend make their own mistakes basically so thomas overbury was like

00:23:48.600 okay my poem didn't work so what i'm gonna do is i'm just gonna like start like lobbying

00:23:54.200 the judges or whatever to not let Francis get her annulment because she's still married to

00:24:00.360 Robert Devereaux at this point. And as long as she's still married to Robert Devereaux,

00:24:03.700 she can't marry Somerset. And that's all Overbury wants for Somerset to not be married

00:24:09.600 to Francis. So Francis was like, okay, I see what's going on because she was both tits out 1.00

00:24:18.000 physically, emotionally, but also mentally. She was super smart, really savvy, super clever. And 0.76

00:24:25.120 so she realized that Overbury was scheming against her. So she enlisted the help of her

00:24:29.860 Howard family, which were basically sort of like, just sort of like a mafia, almost a family where

00:24:35.860 it's just like, this is what's happening. And her whole family's like, we're on it. And so they,

00:24:40.080 they set about getting Thomas Overbury kicked out of court. So she, she had a plan to trick

00:24:47.120 overbury into committing treason and it seems like this whole thing goes all the way to the top

00:24:52.040 as they say on my favorite murder georgia hart stark where even like the king's wife queen anne

00:24:58.060 might have been involved like basically it seems like everybody just like really hated thomas

00:25:03.300 overbury and so they were everyone like literally everyone was on board of just like just sort of

00:25:09.600 kicking him out of court the scheme was this so overbury was obsessed with staying near somerset

00:25:17.040 He didn't want to leave him ever, basically, because they were best friends and he wanted

00:25:22.400 what was best for him slash he was maybe in love with him slash was maybe sleeping with

00:25:26.360 him. 1.00

00:25:27.200 So Francis and the queen, they sort of like use their womanly wiles and exposed chests 0.99

00:25:33.760 to manipulate the king into offering Overbury the job of ambassador to Russia.

00:25:39.720 And Overbury was like, oh my God, what an honor, but I can't go to Russia.

00:25:43.000 I need to literally stay here.

00:25:45.360 Tied at the hip to my best friend.

00:25:46.700 Somerset. And so basically, when the king tells you to go be the Russian ambassador,

00:25:51.300 if you don't do it, then that's treason. And so there's also sort of hints that at this point,

00:25:57.460 the king himself might have not even needed to have been manipulated to do this. Like he wanted

00:26:02.360 to get rid of Overbury as well, because the king was probably in love with, probably sleeping with

00:26:08.100 Somerset as well. So this is just like, it's not a love triangle. It's just like Somerset in the

00:26:14.000 middle. And around him are there like three to five people who are all in love with him and who

00:26:19.920 are all sleeping with him. And where it all sort of turns is that one of those people is Francis

00:26:25.420 Howard and she's just like tits out and she's going to make this happen for her. So basically 0.89

00:26:30.480 the king was on board with getting rid of Thomas Overbury because he was jealous of the time that

00:26:36.240 Overbury spent with Somerset because the king liked to be with Somerset. And this is just all

00:26:40.960 like this is where it gets complicated this is where I feel like of course other podcasts aren't

00:26:45.920 talking about this this is like not a straightforward narrative so just to recap so we've got Somerset

00:26:55.100 who is this man who is the favorite of the king they're probably sleeping together Somerset's

00:27:00.620 best friend is Thomas Overbury they're probably sleeping together so the king is jealous of

00:27:06.980 Somerset's relationship with Overbury, but Overbury is jealous of Somerset's relationship

00:27:11.280 with Frances Howard, tits out Frances Howard, who is still technically married to Robert

00:27:17.040 Devereaux, formerly a teenage boy, now an adult man, recovered from smallpox, hasn't

00:27:23.220 been in the same city as her for a really long time.

00:27:26.220 So these are the puzzle pieces and what's becoming rapidly sort of a weird, sexy version

00:27:32.840 of Clue set in Stuart era. So basically, Overbury had been tricked into committing treason by

00:27:42.300 refusing to become the ambassador to Russia. And so he was arrested and put into jail in the Tower

00:27:49.080 of London. And after five months, he died of, quote unquote, natural causes. So with Overbury

00:27:56.920 out of the way, Francis finally was able to get on with the whole annulment scenario. The way

00:28:02.800 that this worked in this time for this married sort of couple was that um francis and devereux

00:28:10.780 both sort of went into a courtroom and so francis testified that she had done her best 0.61

00:28:15.640 to have sex with with devereux and she says that like she you know she tried to have sex with him 0.54

00:28:21.200 but he was just like not able to to have sex with her he was impotent she alleged um and so the

00:28:28.860 proof of this is that I just want to clarify because I think I got a bit mixed up, which

00:28:33.620 means you're probably a bit mixed up as well. So they got married when they were 13 or 14 years

00:28:38.600 old. Debra went away on a trip for two years. Then he came back. While he was away, Frances

00:28:45.420 had fallen in love with Somerset. And then once he was back, she basically, even though they were

00:28:49.820 husband and wife, she just like never went to bed with him ever is what she did. And so she

00:28:55.960 alleges that he was impotent, so they couldn't have sex, which means the marriage was invalid,

00:29:01.280 which means that she should be able to get an annulment. So the main evidence in a trial where

00:29:06.420 you're trying to prove that your husband, when you're Francis, and you're in this time and place,

00:29:11.880 and she's trying to prove that her husband was impotent, the main evidence is her virginity.

00:29:18.240 Basically, was her hymen intact or not? Because this is a culture and a time and place where

00:29:23.880 a young woman was sort of expected to just never have sex until she was married. And so Frances

00:29:31.220 is saying that she never had sex with her husband, even though she was married. So technically she 0.70

00:29:37.140 should be intact. In order to investigate this, super fun. So she was examined by 10 matrons and

00:29:45.500 two midwives who just did a little gynecological exploration to see whether her hymen was intact.

00:29:52.500 and in so doing they found that yes she was still a virgin but um plot twist it wasn't really

00:29:59.940 francis who they were examining so francis was like i am happy for you guys to investigate my

00:30:08.160 hymen's intactness but i'm also so shy i'm so shy can we just do it in a room with a veil covering

00:30:17.160 my face and can i just like go in the room for a minute first put a veil over my face and then

00:30:21.600 you'll come in and they were like, that's totally reasonable. We've seen portraits of you and have

00:30:26.300 no reason to think that you're not a shy person. So basically she allegedly, rumor has it, switched

00:30:34.480 places with somebody who was a virgin for this inspection. It's entirely possible Frances

00:30:42.580 herself did not ever have sex to this point. If you're looking for the Occam's razor of it all,

00:30:50.500 like and then the investigation was actually of her but that's just like i'm guessing that she

00:30:57.020 switched places with somebody so this is all happening the midwives examined her and they

00:31:01.340 found they're like yep she's totally virgin that means her husband must have been impotent but

00:31:06.040 devereux who was guess what the worst um so he got up on the stand and he was like actually i am 0.59

00:31:12.640 super virile i've had sex with so many people before and it's actually francis's fault that 0.84

00:31:18.800 we never had sex. So he confirms the fact that they never had sex, but he's saying it was her

00:31:22.900 fault because she was so gross and ugly. He got some of his friends to come up and testify for 0.98

00:31:29.340 things like, I've seen him with an erection, which means he's capable of being aroused. So 0.97

00:31:35.660 he clearly could have sex just for some reason. With Frances, he wasn't able to. So Devereux was

00:31:41.540 like, Frances was mean to me. She's sexually unappealing. So I was just unable to have sex 1.00

00:31:47.200 with her but it's her fault and basically this was all happening in court lots of witnesses there 0.98

00:31:53.340 hearing all this talk about sex and hymens and erections and it got really everyone was kind

00:32:00.420 of talking if you've seen like the favorite the movie that was from like just a few decades later

00:32:06.420 people around the court they like a good little piece of gossip and this is just like beyond

00:32:11.080 but wait it gets weirder so suspicions start to come up that perhaps devereux has been bewitched 0.93

00:32:22.000 like satanism might be involved and why he can't he wasn't able to have sex with francis 0.76

00:32:27.560 so for a while it was looking like he might be sent to poland for an exorcism because apparently

00:32:32.940 that is where you went for exorcisms back then but basically eventually the king king james

00:32:39.460 intervened. And it was just like, you know what, we're just going to like grant this annulment.

00:32:45.480 And the trial basically was ended. Three months later, Francis was able to marry Somerset. And

00:32:52.640 so things sort of were looking happily ever after adjacent until it wasn't because two years after

00:33:01.700 Overbury had died, someone finally noticed that he hadn't actually died in prison of natural causes.

00:33:08.140 he'd actually been murdered by poisoning. This is where we get into the next whole weird bit

00:33:14.460 of the whole saga. So basically what happens is Frances and Somerset go back to court.

00:33:21.300 And this time, instead of her virginity being on trial, Frances is on trial for murder

00:33:25.400 with accomplices. So one of the accomplices is Somerset, and then there's four other accomplices.

00:33:31.500 During the trial, the whole scheme came out. So basically what happened was this. So Frances

00:33:37.500 had conspired with some other people to get Thomas Overbury thrown in prison because she

00:33:43.840 knew that once he was in prison, she had enough safeguards in there to poison him to death. 0.94

00:33:48.380 So she had used her presumably tits out powers to have the Lord Lieutenant of the Tower of London 0.98

00:33:56.700 removed and had him replaced by a man much more morally flexible. The new Lord Lieutenant was a 0.96

00:34:03.620 man named Gervais Helwis, which is like quite a name. And then there was also another jailer who

00:34:09.940 she had who was working for her on the inside, who is a man named Robert Weston, who knew a lot

00:34:15.340 about how to kill people with various pharmaceuticals. And the thing is that even though

00:34:21.380 Overbury was in jail, he was still like a wealthy person. So he wasn't like shackled to a wall in a

00:34:26.520 cell. He sort of got like an okay room, sort of like a hotel room. And Richard Weston was like

00:34:31.060 his concierge. And then finally, the final conspirator was somebody named Mrs. Ann Turner,

00:34:37.400 who was the wife of a physician. And slash, she was also herself a part-time brothel owner.

00:34:43.660 So she had access to a lot of drugs. So she was able to get the drugs. Weston was able to 0.99

00:34:48.740 smoosh up the drugs and mix them in the food. And Gervais Helwes was sort of like there to

00:34:53.200 look the other way. Oh, and there was one other person whose name was Simon Franklin,

00:34:57.560 who was an apothecary, presumably. He had something to do with the drugs as well. And the drug they

00:35:03.000 decided to use to kill him with was sulfuric acid. How do we know all of these things? This is like

00:35:08.140 a lot of details to know about something. And the reason we know this is because Frances basically

00:35:13.020 pled guilty. She admitted to having done all of this stuff. But Somerset pled innocent. So the

00:35:20.440 couple is sort of, there's a novel that came out a bit ago called The Poison Bed by E.C. Fremantle.

00:35:26.320 And side note, it's because of the novel that I first started reading up about this actual historical event.

00:35:31.460 But the novel is sort of like Gone Girl, where you're not sure if she's guilty, if he's guilty, if they're both guilty, like who's telling the truth and who's not.

00:35:39.400 But what happened in history was Francis pled guilty and it copped everything.

00:35:43.420 And Somerset said he had nothing to do with it.

00:35:45.240 It was totally all Francis doing everything.

00:35:47.340 Either seems plausible to me.

00:35:49.440 I feel like Francis was obviously capable of planning this all herself, but also like, how would Somerset not have known about it?

00:35:55.760 Anyway, the king, still James I, who's still infatuated with Somerset, was basically, he's like, ooh, this is starting to look bad for me.

00:36:05.420 People are starting to suspect that maybe the king and the queen had something to do with it because the whole like sending overbury to Russia scenario.

00:36:12.860 So he tried to encourage Somerset to plead guilty so they could like wrap this up quickly.

00:36:17.880 And basically, if Somerset pled guilty, then James could pardon him and it would all be done.

00:36:22.040 But Somerset was just like, no, I'm not going to plead guilty, which is where I feel like it could be that he's innocent.

00:36:27.560 But also, if he pled guilty, yeah, the king could pardon him.

00:36:30.560 But what if that didn't happen?

00:36:32.460 What if he was feeling guilty and then got to be executed?

00:36:35.220 Anyway, fun fact. 0.76

00:36:37.420 So there was a jury of all men because it was a time of all men juries. 0.92

00:36:42.000 And do you know who one of the jurors was?

00:36:43.960 This might be part of why Somerset didn't want the jury to decide his fate.

00:36:47.840 because one of the jurors was Robert Devereaux, Francis Howard's ex-husband, the one who

00:36:54.880 was proven in a court to be impotent, who had smallpox as a teenager, etc. So basically Devereaux

00:37:02.220 was eager to sentence both of them to death because they had crossed him. They had forced

00:37:07.000 him to stand up in front of everybody in England and be like, yes, I can have erections. This is 0.96

00:37:12.460 just like, I can't even. So the verdict was decided upon. So what happened was that they

00:37:19.020 were not sentenced to death, but to life in prison. Francis and Somerset were because they were rich

00:37:24.720 and also James, you know, liked them. But the other four who were not wealthy were all hanged

00:37:31.920 for the role in the death. So that means Gervais Helwis, Richard Weston, Ann Turner, and Simon

00:37:36.700 Franklin were all executed for the role in this whole situation. Francis and Somerset both found

00:37:42.440 guilty, sentenced to life in jail, but Francis was pardoned almost immediately. Somerset was

00:37:47.860 also soon after, so they weren't even in jail for that long. Basically, they spent about two years

00:37:52.780 in the Tower of London, which again, as rich people, it wasn't like shackled to the wall.

00:37:57.200 It was sort of just like an okay hotel situation. Clearly, they got to visit each other sometimes

00:38:01.800 because Francis got pregnant and gave birth to a child while they were living there. It was a

00:38:06.600 daughter who they called Anne, nice name. And basically they, they left prison and just like

00:38:13.000 kept, kept going. They lived the rest of their lives out of the public eye. Basically they stayed

00:38:18.260 away from royal court. They were just sort of notorious people that everybody would sort of be

00:38:23.100 like, oh my God, do you know who that is? And they went out anywhere. The whole thing was so dramatic

00:38:27.420 that a number of plays and poems and other writings came out over the next few years,

00:38:31.580 inspired both by the events of Francis's annulment trial and the whole like virgin switcheroo as well

00:38:38.840 as the whole murder thing um posthumously Thomas Overbury's poem a wife became a best-selling poem

00:38:47.560 because of his connection to the crime in that he was murdered and because the poem a wife everybody

00:38:54.180 knew is a subtweet of Francis Howard who is like the most notorious woman in the world

00:38:58.120 basically the poem was not out of print for the next 60 years and if you're wondering what happened

00:39:04.820 to robert devereau he did get married again but he never fathered any children legitimate or

00:39:10.680 illegitimate so maybe he was impotent who's to say francis howard passed away in 1632 aged 42 years

00:39:20.260 old her husband robert carr passed away 12 years later their daughter anne lived a long and healthy

00:39:26.400 life. And the King, King James, stayed King for a while, but this is just like one of many examples

00:39:33.760 of why he kind of got a reputation of being like not a squeaky clean sort of guy, sort of like a

00:39:40.680 morally questionable type person. If you want to read more about this, there's a, so as I said,

00:39:48.440 there's the novel, The Poison Bed by E.C. Fremantle. And there's also two nonfiction books

00:39:53.460 that I read to consult to write this. There's The Overbury Affair by Miriam Allen Defond,

00:39:58.860 as well as Unnatural Murder, Poison in the Court of James I by Anne Somerset,

00:40:03.420 who is an author who seems to be a descendant of Frances Howard and her daughter Anne. And now it

00:40:09.920 is time to score this on the Scandaliciousness score scale. And this is like, okay, there's four

00:40:17.260 four categories and this is just like first we're gonna go we're gonna start with

00:40:22.720 scandalousness so this is like the quality like how juicy and gossipy and like messed up is this

00:40:31.340 story and this is like like this is called murder the francis howard admitted to that she was sent

00:40:40.420 jail for. We've got the scandalous neckline of literally every bodice of every dress she ever 0.96

00:40:47.960 wore. We've got the whole, was she a virgin or not trial? I can't not give this a 10. This is a 10

00:40:56.660 out of, I can't think of anything she could have done. The scandalousness of the fact that

00:41:02.340 Somerset was in his own gay love triangle with the king. This whole story, if I could give it more 0.96

00:41:09.380 than 10 i would for scandalousness in terms of scheminess again i feel like francis howard she

00:41:15.940 had the the scheminess like with the support of her family i guess the question is like how much 0.65

00:41:20.620 was her and how much was her family sort of helping figure all these plans out for her but

00:41:26.240 basically a lot of this rested on her and she was able to pull off a lot of stuff she was able to

00:41:31.080 pull off getting the annulment the virginity switcheroo like conscripting five other people 0.99

00:41:38.380 to murder somebody with her like her scheminess i'm gonna give her an eight an eight for scheminess

00:41:45.580 the next category is significance which is interesting because like so the significance

00:41:52.560 category that would be like did francis howard invent algebra did she i don't know you know like

00:41:58.680 did one of her descendants end up becoming the next queen or whatever like basically in terms of

00:42:04.780 Like, it was a huge scandal at the time.

00:42:07.200 I mean, 10 out of 10 for scandalousness.

00:42:09.520 The significance was a factor in the reputation of James I, which sort of tarnished the reputation

00:42:16.620 of his son, Charles I, who was kicked off the throne by revolution.

00:42:21.620 So it was like, there's some significance to this, but it's like one part of a bigger

00:42:25.760 thing that affected British history.

00:42:28.260 So I love her.

00:42:29.680 Francis Howard is my girl, but I'm just going to give her, I think, a three for significance.

00:42:34.780 And the final category is sexism. It's like giving more points dependent on how much did

00:42:42.700 being a woman in a patriarchal society affect what happened to her. And this is an interesting

00:42:49.340 one to think about because Frances Howard kind of saw the cards she was dealt, being the daughter

00:42:55.820 of this wealthy family, being married off to this guy, and she kind of didn't, she found ways to

00:43:01.180 work with that and to make it work for her like I don't obviously sexism basically everybody's 1.00

00:43:08.040 gonna always at least get a five in sexism because that was just always a part of everyone's life I 1.00

00:43:13.160 mean the fact that she had to prove her virginity in the trial like that's pretty that's pretty 1.00

00:43:19.220 shitty where she had to prove that she wanted to have sex but couldn't like other than that though 0.92

00:43:25.680 like people didn't like i'm gonna i'm gonna stick with a five like a five five in the category of 0.99

00:43:32.300 sexism so that gives her 18 9 21 26 26 out of 40 in these scandalousness scale which is like

00:43:44.660 a really good score i mean we just went through literally everything that she got up to i mean

00:43:50.640 this is the highest score so far i know it's just the second episode but i'm interested to see where

00:43:55.460 where other people are going to score.

00:43:58.320 And now we're just going to take a break

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00:47:01.040 And we're back.

00:47:03.020 Hey, it's me, Anne.

00:47:04.940 Modern day, Anne.

00:47:06.800 And I've got so much information to add to that episode about Francis Howard.

00:47:12.420 The first one is a correction.

00:47:13.900 it. When I first was looking at Frances Howard, and if you look up Frances Howard,

00:47:17.320 just do like a Google image search or whatever, you're going to see the famous portrait of her

00:47:20.920 that's in the National Portrait Gallery, the one that our artwork in the merch store designed by

00:47:25.140 Deborah Wong that says tits out. Like this is a portrait we all know. She's wearing red. She has

00:47:29.600 this mischievous look in her eyes. She has sort of like darkish hair and tits out. You know, 1.00

00:47:34.840 that's a portrait. There are all kinds of other portraits, not all kinds, three to four other

00:47:40.060 portraits of what I thought was the same person, but in fact is another person whose name was also

00:47:45.800 Francis Howard. So these other portraits, she has her hair down and it's kind of blondish hair.

00:47:50.980 She's got paler features, tits out as well, but that's a different person. And I just thought it

00:47:56.440 was the same person because, you know, portraiture, portraits can look very inconsistent depending on

00:48:00.940 who's painting and when. I thought it was all one tits out person, but in fact, there was a second

00:48:05.500 person called Francis Howard, who is also tits out. And her story, I'm just going to summarize 0.98

00:48:11.100 briefly because it's also got some wild connections. And she was cousins of our

00:48:16.660 original Francis Howard. They were both in the court of James I and VI simultaneously. Can you

00:48:21.760 imagine just the tits out energy of both of these people being there? So they weren't siblings,

00:48:26.380 but they were both from the Howard family, which is just like a family where every

00:48:30.020 woman had like 14 children. So they were cousins to some extent, I guess.

00:48:34.200 anyway so this the other francis howard was born in 1578 which is 12 years before the original

00:48:40.800 francis howard so although the francis howard tits out francis howard like i'm gonna call her

00:48:45.400 the original francis howard the other francis howard even though she's older is the other

00:48:49.060 francis howard there's gonna be a third francis howard but wait for that anyway so the other

00:48:56.820 francis howard was orphaned at a young age and then was married off to henry prenell the son of

00:49:02.160 a rich wine merchant, an alderman, and a patron of the Virginia Company. So we're getting some

00:49:07.780 American content here. And that is going to continue the connections to people who were

00:49:14.480 portrayed in the Disney film Pocahontas are going to come up. Anyway, so they were married in 1592.

00:49:22.440 I'm just going to do some quick math. So she's like 14-ish. This marriage displeased William

00:49:26.680 Cecil, who remember William Cecil, who was like Queen Elizabeth's guy. He had other plans for

00:49:33.260 the other Francis because she was the descendant of two dukes. He had other plans for her than

00:49:38.740 marriage with a vintner, a wine merchant. He was so upset that her husband Pranel wrote a letter

00:49:45.060 of apology to Cecil being like, hey, I'm sorry, this marriage was arranged. My bad or whatever.

00:49:50.660 Anyway, he died seven years later, Pranel, this husband. And so the other Francis Howard was

00:49:55.340 left a wealthy widow at age 20, 21 ish. She was a woman of enormous social ambition. Apparently

00:50:01.660 she abandoned a suitor, Sir George Rodney, and in order to have a super secret, sexy marriage.

00:50:07.820 And I do want to just state all this information that I'm telling you is from wikipedia.com,

00:50:12.420 just for the record. Like there's, there's some facts there. Anyway, so this guy, Sir George

00:50:16.700 Rodney wanted to marry her, but she was like, no, I have higher ambitions. I'm the daughter of Dukes.

00:50:20.520 And she super secret sexily married the widower, Edward Seymour, the first Earl of Hertford in 1601. So that's like two years after she was widowed. So she's like 23, 24. And you're like, oh, Edward Seymour. We've talked about a lot of people called Edward Seymour on this podcast. Which one was this?

00:50:40.500 Oh, you know this guy because it's literally Ned Seymour, the same guy who had married Lady Catherine Gray, which we talked about in the Lady Jane Gray season. And if you're like, why and how is he still around? Isn't this like a generation later? Yes, that happened two generations ago. He at this point, so the other Francis Howard was like 24. He was literally 60 years old. And it's the same guy who married Lady Catherine Gray. I lost my mind when I saw that.

00:51:08.800 So the other Francis Howard was, in fact, his third wife. He'd been married to Lady Catherine Gray, who died in prison. I did a whole episode about that. Then he married someone else who we'll talk about in a sec. And then the other Francis Howard was his third wife.

00:51:22.140 So because it was a super secret sexy marriage, it was performed secretly without bans or license. And the guy who did it was this guy called Thomas Montfort. And he was suspended for three years later when it was found out that he had thrown the super secret sexy marriage.

00:51:39.560 And if you're like, Ned Seymour, did you not learn a lesson from when you had your first super secret sexy marriage to Catherine Gray, whatever, like 40 years ago? Why would you do another super secret sexy marriage? You're 60 years old. You know how badly this can go. And the thing is, that's the only kind of marriage he knows how to do.

00:51:57.360 So his first wife was Catherine Gray. His second wife was a third person also called Francis Howard. So he has super secret sexily married two people both called Francis Howard, neither of whom is the person that this episode is about tits out Francis Howard. So it's just a name a lot of people have. So this third person, Francis Howard III, who is this? More connections.

00:52:23.700 So this other Frances Howard was the sister of a woman who we've mentioned named Douglas Sheffield. And you might remember her because it's rare then and now for a woman to be named Douglas. Douglas Sheffield was the mother of Robert Dudley, aka Bobby Dudz's illegitimate son, Robert. And Douglas Sheffield, FYI, was given that first name in honor of her godmother, Margaret Douglas, who we've also talked about as Darnley's mom.

00:52:52.080 And in fact, Francis III and her sister Douglas were apparently rivals for Bobby Duds, I guess

00:52:58.260 with Elizabeth I as well. This marriage to Francis III had also been a super secret sexy marriage,

00:53:05.020 which truly is the only kind of marriage Ned Seymour knows how to do. And it was so secret

00:53:09.860 that nobody found out about it for nearly a decade. Francis III continued on at royal court.

00:53:15.060 Nobody knew that she had married this guy. In 1595, so that's before he married the other

00:53:22.420 Francis. Anyway, at one point, Edward, but he's like fully a grown ass man. He's like 0.91

00:53:27.220 50 years old or whatever. He tried to have this marriage to Francis III set aside in 1595 because

00:53:33.900 he wanted to clear the way for his sons to maybe have acclaimed the throne, the sons he'd had with

00:53:40.000 Catherine Gray, but they had been named illegitimate. But to have this marriage set aside,

00:53:43.640 that meant he had to like reveal it had happened and it was a super secret sexy marriage which was

00:53:48.240 illegal um and so he was arrested again anyway this guy just like is living his own groundhog day

00:53:55.420 situation repeating the same mistakes over and over you know that the definition of insanity

00:54:00.580 is doing the same thing and expecting it to happen differently like guess what happens when you 1.00

00:54:04.160 super secret sexually get married ned like you can throw it in jail you goddamn dumbass anyway 1.00

00:54:11.120 Francis III died in 1598. 1.00

00:54:13.800 She was buried in Westminster Abbey.

00:54:15.900 So if you go to Westminster Abbey, just to make everything extra confusing,

00:54:19.680 presumably the name Francis Howard is there.

00:54:22.240 And if you, a Titsout Brigadier, you're like, oh my God, Francis Howard.

00:54:26.460 Like, I love her, Titsout Legend.

00:54:28.180 Like, maybe this one was too, but this is Francis III. 0.94

00:54:31.740 This is not the Titsout Francis Howard, who's in Westminster Abbey.

00:54:37.340 So she died.

00:54:38.120 And then he was like, you know what I'm going to do?

00:54:39.480 marry someone with the same name as my previous wife i don't have to change you know the napkin

00:54:44.060 embroidery is like great i'll just marry someone else also called francis howard who is the other

00:54:49.260 francis howard anyway so this third marriage also exploded in his face like people found out about

00:54:54.660 it and he got in trouble yet again because that's like his shame kink or whatever so you remember

00:55:00.000 the other francis had this suitor called rodney who she like cast aside to marry him rodney um was

00:55:06.860 really upset about this. He shut himself up in a room at an inn, wrote a large paper of well-composed

00:55:14.840 verses, like he wrote a long poem to her, to the other Francis, in his own blood, and then ran

00:55:22.800 himself upon his sword, is what Rodney did about this. So she had quite an effect on him and he had

00:55:28.860 some issues as well, clearly. Anyway, so this person, the other Francis, was named a lady of

00:55:34.400 the bedchamber to Anne of Denmark, who we will talk about in a second a bit more. And apparently

00:55:40.420 Anne of Denmark really loved her and she was fond of her. Like she wore a miniature portrait of the

00:55:46.040 other Francis Howards. I'm not, the details are not here and we'll be here forever if I can have

00:55:51.180 the details, but so like a locket or like a locket ring. So now I'm thinking like, were these two

00:55:56.160 lovers? Like anyway, she liked her a lot, the other Francis. Anyway, so we just know a couple

00:56:01.860 more things about the other Frances Howard. Although one might think that when tits out 1.00

00:56:08.520 Frances Howard stuff was going on, I think the other Frances would want to be like, no, no, 0.86

00:56:11.980 that's not me. I didn't poison anybody. I'm the other Frances Howard. So November 1603,

00:56:17.500 the other Frances wrote to her husband's steward about purchases to be made as Christmas gifts.

00:56:22.160 So we know from the Mary Queen of Scott stuff, these are the sorts of ways we learn what people

00:56:26.120 are like. What gifts were they buying for people? What purchases were they making themselves?

00:56:29.520 One of the gifts she wanted to give to somebody was an embroidered nightcap to be worked in black silk, gold and silver thread. Very fair and not grossly wrought, she wrote. And then she was like, this is the person who I know. This is the Etsy shop I recommend you buy it from. And then she wrote her sister Mary would be able to help him choose one. But what I'm telling you this and why I think it's notable is because she wanted to choose one to pass off as her own work. Like she would pretend that she had embroidered it herself.

00:56:56.960 Anyway, so you know what?

00:56:58.280 Like, I respect the hustle.

00:56:59.640 Like, the vibes is like buying a cake in Costco and then putting it on a pan and, like, messing up the frosting a little bit to pretend like you made a cake.

00:57:07.280 We know that Anne of Denmark liked to have mask parties and put on plays starring herself.

00:57:12.000 The other Frances appeared as Vesta in the Queen's Mask, The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, in January 1604.

00:57:19.860 Like, this is all happening early 1600s.

00:57:21.720 And the other Francis Howard, like the Overbury murder and trial and stuff, that was like 10 years later. So that happened. I'm sure she spent a lot of time being like, that's not me. That's this other Francis Howard. She can't say no relation because they are related, but it's just like, no, just someone with my same name. Totally not me.

00:57:40.680 anyway so ned her old her elderly husband died in 1621 and two months later which i would say

00:57:48.460 is scandalousy quickly she married and this is another connection um she married ludovic stewart

00:57:55.940 i love people with memorable names because when they pop up again i am like i know that name

00:58:00.620 ludovic stewart is the son of esme stewart so esme stewart was king james's uncle slash first

00:58:09.160 gay crush. So Ludovic, his son. So he's got some connection to the royal family, the stewards.

00:58:15.420 Yeah. So Ludo, as he was called, was the cousin of the king, King James. He was a privy counselor,

00:58:21.200 steward of the royal household. And because of this marriage, this now made the other Francis

00:58:25.120 Howard Duchess of Lennox. So because James had given the Lennox title to Esme, his uncle slash

00:58:32.660 crush, and then it passed down to Esme's son, Ludo. So here's a story that was relayed by

00:58:38.580 somebody called Joseph Mead. It's just a funny thing that happened in 1622. So the king had

00:58:43.880 asked for a gold chain to give to an ambassador as a parting gift, a chain that happened to belong

00:58:49.020 to his wife and of Denmark was brought for his approval, but he thought it was too valuable to 0.99

00:58:53.360 give as a present because we know he was a frugal bitch. Prince Charles, his son, his older son, 0.99

00:58:59.240 not hot Prince Charles from later, don't worry, this is just another guy called Charles,

00:59:02.800 suggested that instead he should present this chain to the new Duchess of Lennox,

00:59:07.120 the other Francis Howard as a gift. And so the king agreed. And his son, the prince,

00:59:12.700 presented the chain to the other Francis and placed it around her neck. But according to

00:59:16.780 Joseph Mead, who I appreciate your writings, Joseph Mead, I'm always here for a messy bitch 1.00

00:59:21.300 living for drama, writing down the messy dramas happening. But according to him, seeing this 0.96

00:59:27.480 happen, somebody was upset about it. And the somebody who was upset about it was Mary Villiers,

00:59:31.300 who is the mother of George Villiers, who is played by Julianne Moore in that upcoming

00:59:35.920 stars series, Mary and George. And so she was the one, she's like the pageant mom who's like

00:59:40.460 pimping out her son, George Villiers. And her whole thing was like, I want my son and myself

00:59:44.500 to be like the most favoritists. Anyway, so she was jealous to see this chain being given to the

00:59:51.100 other Francis. And so she decided to acquire it, like AKA steal it. So she sent a messenger to the

00:59:58.500 other Francis pretending and got the messenger to pretend to be from the king. Like the king was

01:00:03.400 asking it to be returned but the messenger was going to actually give it back to mary villiers

01:00:07.980 the other francis like knew what game she was playing and she was like uh i'm sorry what and

01:00:14.700 so she asked she questioned the messenger and the fraud was exposed um and the scandal was such that 1.00

01:00:20.300 mary villiers was asked to leave court for a while because she's a messy bitch and just adding to my 1.00

01:00:24.800 notes of people to maybe talk about on this podcast anyway but then you know just to be fair 1.00

01:00:30.520 like this is like third-hand gossip being reported by this guy Thomas Mead um so it was maybe

01:00:36.260 unfounded rumors to try and make Mary Villiers look bad but like whatever it's a good story

01:00:42.460 the other Francis was also given a jewel set with diamonds in the form of the letter H

01:00:47.200 I guess for Howard this had belonged to Anne of Denmark so you know those two are besties

01:00:52.900 I'm just throwing it out here maybe lovers based on no evidence anyway she got lots of jewelry as

01:01:00.240 gifts. And then her husband Ludo got like various titles. So Ludo was named the Duke of Richmond

01:01:06.020 in 1623, which meant that she was the Duchess of Richmond. And she became known as the Double 0.97

01:01:11.660 Duchess because she was the Duchess of Lennox and the Duchess of Richmond. And she was literally

01:01:16.780 called the Double Duchess, which I mean, you can't not double Ds. So this is the other Francis 0.94

01:01:22.400 Howard now, Double Ds. Ludo died suddenly. Was he murdered? You know, you decide. Anyway, he died.

01:01:30.240 With no children of his own, the dukedom of Richmond and the earldom of Newcastle upon Tyne became extinct upon his death.

01:01:38.080 The dukedom of Lennox was inherited by his younger brother, also called Esme Stewart.

01:01:42.860 Because we're just doing a lot of name repeating here.

01:01:45.660 Anyway, the other Frances Howard, double D's.

01:01:48.360 She retained the title Duchess of Richmond.

01:01:51.020 So she stopped being double duchess at this point.

01:01:53.200 I guess that's why I mentioned it.

01:01:54.440 The other Frances Howard was also buried in Westminster Abbey.

01:01:58.140 next to her third husband, Ned Seymour. Like is, is this other wife also Francis III buried there

01:02:05.340 also? Anyway. So if you go to Westminster Abbey, you're going to see the name Francis Howard

01:02:08.820 potentially twice as a person who was buried there. And one of them is this one, the double D's.

01:02:14.160 The other one is Francis III, who we don't, we know much less about, but she was married to him

01:02:19.260 for 10 years and he pretended they weren't. Anyway. So she was buried next to him in the

01:02:23.500 magnificent tomb she had had erected in his memory now i mentioned before characters from

01:02:30.040 the disney movie pocahontas now i do have in my long-term planning i'm really hoping to

01:02:35.340 invite on a special guest to do justice to the story of the woman best known as pocahontas her

01:02:41.020 name was matauka actually so we're going to get into all that later i have done on patreon a so

01:02:47.640 this asshole episode about john smith but so do you remember like why i did a patreon episode

01:02:51.720 about john smith because he um was one of the people fighting in where was it where was it 0.86

01:02:58.520 romania like the elizabeth bathory story like captain john smith just became a captain because

01:03:03.760 of his fighting there anyway but he's connected to this as well because remember her first husband

01:03:08.800 was involved with a virginia company later on so i guess that like america was like of interest to

01:03:13.580 her double d's and so she as a widow she provided financial support for the publication of captain

01:03:20.200 John Smith's book slash pamphlet, The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer

01:03:25.120 Isles. And that's his like book of like, wild lies making himself sound heroic when actually

01:03:31.440 he's a dirtbag. That book was published with a dedication to the illustrious and most noble 0.62

01:03:37.060 princess, the Lady Frances, Duchess of Richmond and Lennox. Anyway, I had to share all those

01:03:42.800 connections because it's wild. It was quite a while ago, and I forget your name, I'm so sorry.

01:03:46.220 But a member of the Tits Out Brigade is the one who alerted me to the fact that there was another Francis Howard. And then she and I, I remember we were both reading through the Wikipedia and like clicking links together. And I was like, Oh my God, do you know who her husband was? Literally the same guy as Catherine Gray. And we were both freaking out about it. So thank you to that person for bringing this to my attention. But also I wanted to mention it because in the podcast, you just heard of past me. You know, I'm talking about all these portraits and her tits are out. And it's like her tits are out in the portrait that exists. Tits Out Francis Howard.

01:04:14.040 Double D's, double D's are also out in her portraits, but that's two different people. 0.87

01:04:18.620 And you can tell the difference because double D's always has her hair down and it's kind of blonde.

01:04:23.140 Our Frances Howard hair is up and she's wearing a red dress with a yellow ruff. 1.00

01:04:27.200 So further corrections I wanted to mention.

01:04:30.260 So the tits out neckline, which is what first caught my attention about the original tits out Frances Howard. 0.96

01:04:35.740 From now on, I'm only talking about her. 0.97

01:04:37.240 I'm going to stop differentiating.

01:04:38.660 So I said in the episode, and I had thought, people of this era did not have this neckline. She was doing a tits out thing, and that makes her stand out. And it's true that a lot of other people don't have that on portraiture, but it's false that other people were not doing that. 0.96

01:04:55.140 So if you listen to my interview with Rosie Hart from a couple months ago, or read her book, frankly, The Royal Wardrobe, which is really good. She talks about Anne of Denmark. She's also posted videos about this. She's Rosie H. Hart on Instagram and TikTok. But the tits out neckline, Anne of Denmark made that happen. Anne of Denmark was a tits out icon, as it turns out.

01:05:17.320 And we know this because royal ambassadors or whatever, like people coming to town who would be like, hey, here's what it's like in England. And they'd write back to their countries, you know, Spain or Italy or whatever. And they were just like, here's what's happening in England. Tits are out. Like tits are out. Like the queen's neckline literally goes to her waist, like is what they wrote, like to her waist, like her tits were out.

01:05:38.200 As Rosie Hart explains, like tits out was such a thing that people were applying makeup to like make their nipples different colors. They would use blue sort of like eyeliner to like emphasize like the veins on their like pale skin on their tits. Like tits out was everywhere. But Puritanism and Protestantism was the name of the game at this point. 0.98

01:06:01.220 So in portraits, Anne of Denmark is painted tits in because that was, I don't know, they wanted to show people were like not, I don't know, people were living tits out. There was not photography. There's only portraits and the portrait painters covered up the tits, but the tits were out everywhere. And so Frances Howard's neckline was, she's not the only one doing it, but everyone was doing it. And what a time to be alive. 0.86

01:06:26.820 And one of the reasons we also know for sure that these ambassadors weren't just exaggerating the tits-out-ishness of it all is that when Anne of Denmark died, so they made a funeral effigy, which was like a thing they did, which is you kind of made a life-size mannequin that looked like the person, and then you'd put them in their favorite outfit, which is, I don't know, cooler than mummifying a body or whatever, longer lasting.

01:06:51.560 anyway so the funeral effigy like we don't know what dress it was wearing but the effigy itself

01:06:55.780 still remains so it's and the way that it's done up is like the only parts that are like painted

01:07:00.220 and like completed are the parts that would have been seen that aren't covered by the dress

01:07:04.360 so like you see her face you see like her neck you know and you see her tits so it's like the 0.98

01:07:10.080 dress that she would have been wearing in effigy was like literally tits out so it's a tits out 0.95

01:07:14.480 era so that's a correction when i thought francis was the only person doing this no she's just the

01:07:18.560 only person being painted like this. I also wanted to mention, and I hadn't noticed when I first

01:07:22.420 looked at the painting, but it became really important to know about, especially after I

01:07:26.820 spoke with Lucy Jago, author of Annette for Small Fishes, The Yellow Roughs of It All.

01:07:31.960 And Rosie Hart talks about this in her book as well. So one of the people who actually would

01:07:37.060 have executed, one of the people implicated in the Overbury murder was Ann Turner, who was a very

01:07:42.420 close friend of Frances Howard. In fact, when she was executed, Frances Howard wrote just

01:07:46.240 devastating things about how like how can I go on without her and stuff like they were so close

01:07:50.640 they're really good friends and that's kind of the basis of Lucy's novel Annette for Small Fishes

01:07:54.460 was the friendship between these two women because as she mentioned in our interview which you can

01:07:58.760 find if you scroll back I did a whole like hour-long interview with Lucy Jacko just like

01:08:02.520 dishing about Francis Howard what really moved her about the story was you don't often hear about

01:08:06.940 women's friendship in history but there is so much evidence of Francis Howard and Ann Turner and how

01:08:13.240 close they really were in a friendship way i'm not going to be like oh maybe they were lovers but

01:08:17.960 like maybe they were lovers but they were friends anyway and ann turner was like i'm trying to think

01:08:23.840 of who to compare her to it's like not an anna wintour moment it's like la roach i think is like

01:08:28.700 the most famous celebrity stylist if he's still he still styles for zendaya anyway she had a vision

01:08:34.900 and a dream and her vision and dream and a business was yellow roughs so like the lacy

01:08:40.220 collars on people's outfits that you see in portraits she would she had access to the

01:08:45.780 saffron to dye them yellow and that became a big thing and yellow in general um james the first

01:08:52.360 slash six who was a guy who wore the same clothes until they literally fell off his body not a

01:08:57.920 fashion girly he was protestant and that he that was important to him and to his reign and stuff

01:09:03.200 and he was like the whole thing with protestants is you were like black and white and that's what

01:09:06.740 you do. Yellow had Catholic connections because the dye, I think was procured from, I want to say

01:09:15.980 Spain. And then it was imported through Ireland, like Catholic countries. So like to have yellow

01:09:21.700 meant you are like supporting the Catholics. It's kind of like, I mean, my millennials might 0.87

01:09:26.620 remember after 9-11, there was a whole thing. Why was this? Like America was really mad at

01:09:32.320 France for some reason. And so they stopped calling them French fries. They started calling

01:09:36.060 them freedom fries so anyway james was just like stop wearing yellow roughs the other thing about 0.98

01:09:41.360 yellow people wearing these yellow dyed coats and the coats were like challenging gender conventions

01:09:46.660 because like men wore them and women wore them and james was like i ban yellow i ban yellow dyed

01:09:53.080 roughs but everyone still kept doing it because no one took him seriously about fashion advice

01:09:57.320 because like look at him so the yellow roughs were a major thing ann turner brought this in

01:10:02.740 she popularized it was like a political statement to wear a yellow ruff. And if you look at the

01:10:06.560 Francis Howard portrait, the one that's in the National Portrait Gallery in the red dress,

01:10:10.040 the ruff on her dress is yellow. So that's a connection to Ann Turner, but also kind of

01:10:13.940 showing that she was into fashion, but also like a little bit politically minded, supporting

01:10:19.840 Catholics at a time when that was not popular. And so I asked, I think I asked Lucy Jago and

01:10:26.140 maybe also Rosie Hart, but like if yellow ruffs are so popular, why don't you see them in more

01:10:30.140 portraits from this time and part of it is potentially the same reason you don't see the

01:10:33.220 tits out like the to make a portrait that's so permanent that's like your fashion statement is

01:10:38.440 just being like this is me and i'm doing this it was kind of a bolder thing to do than to just show

01:10:42.440 up one time in a party wearing a thing because so you know there's not photographs anyway one of the

01:10:47.860 other reasons is maybe people in portraits so they're roughs might have just faded like the

01:10:53.020 paint might have been yellow paint but it faded to white but also they might have just been painted

01:10:56.280 of white to look more puritan adjacent and then also crucial is that francis howard and the reason

01:11:05.240 i talked in the podcast the podcast you're still listening to the podcast but like the one from

01:11:09.480 2020 about francis howard and like you know did she fake her virginity test and then like was she

01:11:15.020 the one behind the poisoning of thomas overbury and stuff and the thing is we don't know like her

01:11:22.100 trial was pretty ridiculous and like the decision was already made ahead of time what was going to

01:11:26.540 happen and if you really look and this this is all stuff i learned from lucy jago just from her

01:11:29.940 research and how she looked at it it's like okay a couple things happen so robert carr had been the

01:11:35.620 favorite of king james but then george villiers came on the scene his mom julianne moore in the

01:11:41.560 tv show pimped him out and george villiers started becoming the favorite and then robert carr was

01:11:47.780 just like i don't know i don't know what to do about this you know like often favorites would

01:11:52.920 like be like great i don't have to be like the favorite anymore i'll just like take my like

01:11:57.960 dukedoms and go like live in the country somewhere but robert carr was like no i want to stay the

01:12:02.020 favorite and so it's kind of because he fought back then there was a faction who was against him

01:12:07.120 and then like he the murder of thomas overbury maybe could have gotten away with except for

01:12:13.020 robert carr fucked it all up by um not letting go of his favorite status but like to be fair to him

01:12:18.660 he didn't know how to do anything else so he had been so he made so many enemies because the king 0.88

01:12:25.180 listened to him so much um even though he was basically a himbo and all the stuff he told the

01:12:30.420 king to do is what thomas overbury told him to tell the king anyway the reason that this went 0.88

01:12:34.160 to trial even though like everybody at court was doing shit like this all the time it was a way

01:12:38.900 the enemies just saw this as a way to punish robert carr through this stuff so if you look 0.85

01:12:43.880 at the people who were arrested which is like robert carr who may or may not have even been

01:12:47.980 involved like that's still unknown if he actually like he's certainly an accessory after the fact

01:12:52.840 but like was he complicit in the thing i don't know but the whole thing about like you know

01:12:56.200 francis was a mastermind or whatever it's like we don't know that she was like and she was certainly

01:13:00.560 seemingly very involved but it's unclear the people who were executed for this were all the

01:13:06.260 like not aristocrats like the non-nobles so ann turner really took the fall for this where it's

01:13:12.480 just like what was her involvement in it anyway so just what i do want to clarify is just like we

01:13:17.640 don't actually know how much of this stuff francis howard did and the reason why she's portrayed as

01:13:25.800 this like femme fatale is because of the george villiers of it all because like they had to make

01:13:31.140 her look terrible because robert carr had enemies and it's just like everyone was terrible

01:13:35.720 obviously in at this court like people were just like doing shitty things all the time that's just

01:13:40.380 what society was like it was kind of like gossip girl the tv show where it's just kind of everyone's

01:13:45.040 kind of shitty but it's like you have to be shitty to survive so anyway francis howard she certainly

01:13:49.860 stands out to me but to be like she was this notorious murderer is like not entirely true 0.93

01:13:59.200 or valid but she's important in so many ways and so when i knew i was going to be revisiting this

01:14:05.120 episode and her score, which wait, let me just bring it up because it's like very, very, very

01:14:11.720 low considering her importance to this podcast and everything she did in life, frankly. And so

01:14:17.520 this is one that I'm going to be revisiting. So she has a score right now of 26, which is like

01:14:24.840 a very common score. A lot of people get on the show, but I feel like she deserves to revisit

01:14:30.700 what this score is. And so I reached out to Lucy Jago, who again, the first author I ever

01:14:36.660 interviewed on this podcast. If you want to find our interview, it's an hour long, just look up

01:14:40.520 Annette for Small Fishes or Lucy Jago, it's J-A-G-O in wherever you listen to this podcast.

01:14:45.020 But no, it was the first interview I ever did. And it was on Zoom and the audio quality is

01:14:49.660 not what it is now. But anyway, Christina, I've not yet got her to work her magic on that episode.

01:14:55.300 But anyway, I wanted to ask Lucy Jago, who knows more about Frankie Howard than anyone,

01:15:00.860 what, how she would score her in the various areas and just kind of what her thoughts were

01:15:05.020 about it.

01:15:05.700 And she sent me such a thoughtful response.

01:15:07.780 And I'm going to read everything to you because this is, she knows best in this era.

01:15:12.780 So for scandalousness, here's what she wrote.

01:15:15.500 Francis Howard caused tremendous scandal by asking for the annulment of her marriage to

01:15:19.520 the Earl of Essex arranged when she was around 14 and he was 13.

01:15:23.120 Her request posed a massive challenge to the patriarchal order, especially if she was asking for it on the grounds of Essex's impotence.

01:15:30.120 Essex was not impotent with prostitutes, only with his wife.

01:15:33.440 It was argued that his member, his, God, what did, his todger, was bewitched.

01:15:39.120 The countrywide debate the annulment proceedings provoked was savage, especially when Frances married the royal favorite, Robert Carr, three months later.

01:15:46.760 During the hearings for the divorce, 1.00

01:15:48.060 Frances was accused by a cunning woman 1.00

01:15:49.840 of paying her to provide poisons to kill her husband, 0.99

01:15:52.560 which did not add to her popularity.

01:15:54.720 It adds to my love of her and my heart,

01:15:57.060 but in that Puritan era, no.

01:15:59.160 By the time a case was made against her for murder, 1.00

01:16:01.000 Frances was already considered such a scandalous woman 1.00

01:16:03.740 that murder was seen as being well within her capabilities. 0.99

01:16:07.620 And Lucy suggests a 10 for scandalousness,

01:16:10.500 and I absolutely agree. 1.00

01:16:12.640 Tits out Frances Howard. 1.00

01:16:14.080 How can you score her any less? 0.91

01:16:15.180 like initially i would score her highly and that just because of the tits out ishness and i'm like 0.99

01:16:19.860 oh and she did this murder and whatever but it's like no she like the scandal of getting the 0.99

01:16:23.820 annulment and so i do want to emphasize like this was a time when like women couldn't bring divorce 0.91

01:16:29.160 proceedings themselves she had to convince her father to do this on her behalf and the father

01:16:35.200 was the one who had arranged the marriage like she this was seen as just she described it as like 0.80

01:16:41.480 going against the patriarchal order. For a woman to be demanding a divorce on grounds of impotence 0.99

01:16:48.360 was just like, Herman, my pills, but times a thousand. Everyone was just like, how dare you? 1.00

01:16:54.180 Even though everyone in this era was just like, fucking everyone. They were also very, very 0.99

01:17:00.220 Protestant. Anyway, I don't know. A wild time. 10 out of 10 for scandalousness for our girl,

01:17:05.980 Frankie. Scheminess. Here's what Lucy Jago says.

01:17:09.000 I believe Frances was ambitious as well as scheming, not simply ambitious for high position 0.52

01:17:13.780 at court, but for her own happiness. This was not a commonly held ambition for men or women at the

01:17:19.020 time. One was meant to accept one's law in life as ordained by God. But I don't think Frances

01:17:23.260 held God in too high esteem and was far more interested in having a good time in this life

01:17:27.760 than waiting for the next. She had been married very young to an awful, grumbling boar who 0.80

01:17:32.560 despised women and was cruel and probably violent. It is not surprising she wanted to escape the 0.93

01:17:37.640 marriage. His impotence was another insult for it denied her the possibility of providing an heir,

01:17:42.320 which was an aristocratic woman's way to achieving status and position. So yes, I think she was 0.84

01:17:46.660 involved in schemes that would promote her agenda of finding personal happiness, such as meeting a

01:17:51.720 cunning woman to get her rid of Essex and being involved in a plot masterminded by her great

01:17:55.840 uncle to silence Sir Thomas Overbury. So here, Lucy is suggesting that she was involved in the

01:18:02.420 plot to murder Thomas Overbury, but not that she herself was the one behind it, which is worth

01:18:07.180 considering. Anyway, Lucy continues. Mostly, I think she wanted to marry a man of her own

01:18:11.540 choosing, which at the time was considered outrageous, but which we have sympathy for

01:18:15.320 today. So score eight and eight in scheminess. I absolutely agree. Significance. Here's what

01:18:23.020 Lucy says. I think the scandals Frances became embroiled in had a great impact. Her annulment 0.99

01:18:28.360 certainly caused a huge furore and prompted debate about the unhappiness of many couples

01:18:32.840 pushed into arranged marriages when far too young to know their own minds. The king himself made it

01:18:38.260 known he was not keen on the marriage of very young people or marriages arranged without any

01:18:42.600 consideration of the suitability of the couple to be married. Frances's own sister was married at

01:18:47.580 18 to a man older than her grandfather, and her brother was betrothed to a girl of eight.

01:18:52.380 Frances's father was already considered a little old-fashioned to be marrying his children off so

01:18:56.460 young, and after the debacle of the Essex marriage, it became even more unusual to do so.

01:19:01.480 The scandals she provoked, especially the Overbury scandal, dented the esteem in which the monarchy was held and has been frequently cited as one of the causes of the civil war. And the civil war is when Cromwell, etc. kicked off. So James I slash six. This is an era I do not know very well. It's an era that British people know very well, it seems like.

01:19:21.560 Anyway, so James the first slash sixth son, his son Prince Charles died. No, no, no. His son Prince Charles lived. His son Prince Henry died. Anyway, Charles, his son was the next king and he was overthrown by Cromwell to take over the government.

01:19:42.500 And then later on, James's grandson, Hot Charles II, sexy Captain Hook, came back in and took over again. But you remember all the stuff with Hot Charles was like on the run, hiding in trees. Like that was like his dad. That was the Civil War. Like when the monarchy was like briefly abolished in England.

01:20:02.540 but this scandal dented the esteem in which the monarchy was held and has been frequently cited

01:20:07.360 as one of the causes of the english civil war certainly it showed james's court in a very bad

01:20:11.560 light correctly it was a wild place and through doubt of his manner of ruling giving power to

01:20:17.260 his favorites and possibly perverting or breaking the law in order to achieve his own aims so for

01:20:22.060 this for significance lucy scores francis with a seven sexism okay so here's lucy the patriarchal 1.00

01:20:31.580 system into which Frances was born entirely dominated the way in which she was able to live 1.00

01:20:35.880 her life. Her father was able to marry her off as a young teenager because his children, like his

01:20:40.060 wife, were his property. Once married, Frances had no control over her finances or where she lived 0.98

01:20:44.720 because she belonged to her younger husband. In theory, she couldn't even go shopping alone as 0.97

01:20:49.220 married women were not allowed to make contracts. When seeking a divorce, Frances herself could not 1.00

01:20:54.480 bring the case as married women had no legal power. They had fewer rights than children. 1.00

01:20:58.120 So her father and great-uncle brought it on her behalf. Despite acknowledging his impotence,

01:21:02.920 it was not Essex whose sexual behavior was questioned, but Frances, who had to undergo

01:21:06.880 a physical examination to prove her virgin state. The annulment led to Frances being considered

01:21:11.160 sexually voracious as she sought to be satisfied in bed when women were not meant to express any 1.00

01:21:16.440 sexual desire whatsoever other than be provoked by their husbands. In the court trials, the full 0.95

01:21:21.440 sexism of the law was brought to bear over her. Women were considered to be born flawed, daughters 1.00

01:21:26.100 of the sinner Eve who were easily tempted into the past of sin unless under the careful supervision 0.58

01:21:30.900 of fathers and husbands. A woman who committed any sins such as the sin of vanity for wearing 0.96

01:21:35.260 makeup or being interested in fashion was then considered capable of committing every sin from 0.92

01:21:39.660 infidelity to murder. Of course, she was tried by men with a jury of men and could not defend 0.99

01:21:44.300 herself as to speak in public would be to instantly condemn herself as women were to be 1.00

01:21:48.380 chaste, obedient, and silent. So she gives her a nine for sexism and that bumps Frances Howard 0.99

01:21:54.560 from a 26 up to a 34 which I love because she deserves to be up in this top echelon like the 0.99

01:22:03.640 30 plus scores on vulgar history are all the most I don't know I'm not going to say it's the most

01:22:09.340 interesting but like she deserves to be up there like 34 like Brunhild of Austrasia has a 34 like

01:22:16.840 I'm looking to see who else is here, like Zhang Yisao, 35, like Chevalier Dayan, 35.5. 0.98

01:22:24.280 That's where Frances Howard belongs, just in this tier, in this tier of tits out legends,

01:22:30.420 like considering the impact she's had on this podcast. It's massive. So I'm really happy to

01:22:37.140 be able to put her there again. I'm thinking about the Lady Jane Seymour Memorial Award for

01:22:41.340 Outstanding Supporting Performance. And I am going to give one for Ann Turner because she

01:22:46.940 always... I didn't mention her lots in the podcast, but when you read Lucy's book,

01:22:52.580 which again is fiction, but it's so heavily researched. It's based on what really happened.

01:22:58.380 Ann Turner was so there for Frances Howard, making her these amazing outfits, but also

01:23:03.320 just supporting her, helping her with her murder plans. They were besties. Their friendship,

01:23:09.080 like the way that francis howard was absolutely gutted and devastated when ann turner took the

01:23:13.660 fall for this murder like it really speaks to the depth of their support and love for each other

01:23:18.520 and nobody's at the jeweled tortoise level here i don't think for francis howard so

01:23:26.640 yeah i'm gonna you're listening to this and it's like mid slash late december holidays are upon us

01:23:33.960 I hope you're all doing well. This is a stressful time for a lot of people. I do want to mention

01:23:39.460 that if you're looking for a last minute gift for somebody, if you're someone who celebrates

01:23:43.340 Christmas and gives gifts, a last minute gift that will arrive in time is if you want to get

01:23:48.160 a little video message from me. It's a thing I'm doing just until Christmas on Cameo, which is like

01:23:54.540 what it is. It costs like $10 or something. And then you just say, here's what I want the message

01:24:01.000 to say so I could just be like hey tits out whatever you know just as a last minute gift 0.96

01:24:05.840 for somebody you know who's on the tits out brigade or for yourself anyway um the link to that 0.96

01:24:09.940 is in the show notes and everywhere just go to cameo and look for me anyway another gift that's

01:24:15.560 always in style um just talking about I don't know this is why I love having this as our one of our

01:24:20.480 brand partners common era jewelry just because we've talked so much about like the importance

01:24:24.000 of jewelry and fashion like back in the day women couldn't own property or things like what they

01:24:30.640 could own was jewelry so like when a marriage split up or whatever if you were widowed like

01:24:34.740 you could sell your jewelry that's where you get your money from actually i forget if i said this 0.59

01:24:38.420 in the podcast before but remember when we were talking about margaret fleming and she had that 0.99

01:24:42.180 like wildly huge amount of raw wool in her castle so it turns out that that's a way that women could 0.64

01:24:48.620 also amass wealth when they couldn't be given property or literal money was just having wool

01:24:54.540 So anyway, Common Ear Jewelry is our brand partner. And one of the things about the jewelry

01:25:00.300 that she makes, Tori is the name of the woman who runs the company. I do want to mention that the

01:25:05.020 Anne Boleyn gold vermeil necklace is available, hopefully still available just in limited

01:25:09.660 quantities. And so that's a more affordable option to get. It's a beautiful necklace.

01:25:13.700 It's the front of it is a portrait of Anne Boleyn. The back just says Anne. Beautiful. Anyway,

01:25:17.900 and you can always get a 15% off from Common Ear Jewelry with code VULGAR. But what's really

01:25:22.720 great about this or any jewelry honestly is to be able to have something as a keepsake

01:25:27.040 to pass down and i just i appreciate that the tradition of giving jewelry as a keepsake came

01:25:31.520 from back when women didn't weren't able to have money but it's a way to give somebody who you love

01:25:36.220 a gift and then in future if they need you know it's just a way to safeguard them by giving them 0.81

01:25:40.820 something lovely that lasts any comment your jewelry is 100% women-owned business using 100%

01:25:46.340 recycled gold and makes all their pieces made to order which means there is no waste when you place

01:25:51.140 in order they make the items, so there's not a lot sitting around being unused. The pieces are

01:25:55.480 entirely made in New York City, so everyone involved has healthcare and good wages. Even

01:25:59.680 the packaging is made by a lovely little family-owned business in Chicago. Their designs

01:26:03.960 are inspired by classical mythology, as well as women from history, including their latest

01:26:08.020 collection, all about difficult women. And it's funny because I think she posted at some point,

01:26:13.200 Tori, about Comanier, and she's like, who are some other people who you'd like to see? And I was like,

01:26:17.040 Fred again. And I'm like, Frances Howard. But like, I know that these people are famous to

01:26:20.940 us, but like the people who she has on her jewelry are people who are like very famous to

01:26:25.520 lots of people. So we're talking about like Boudicca, Cleopatra, Agrippina, Anne Boleyn,

01:26:31.620 as well as mythological women like Medusa and Aphrodite. Oh, she also has Sappho is one of

01:26:37.480 the ones that's there. And actually it's just a little Easter egg for you. If you look through

01:26:41.800 her Difficult Women collection, one of the women there is somebody who I'm working on an episode

01:26:45.900 about for next year. So that's a little spoiler for you. Anyway, so again, Vulgar History listeners

01:26:52.040 can always get 15% off items from Common Era by going to commonera slash vulgar or using code

01:26:57.280 vulgar at checkout. And you can always get in touch with me using the form at vulgarhistory.com

01:27:02.780 or emailing me at vulgarhistorypod at gmail.com. You can also catch up with me on Instagram at

01:27:09.420 vulgarhistorypod. I'm also on TikTok at vulgarhistory, where I've been doing some TikToks

01:27:13.960 lately you know i like wax and wane in my use of tiktok but i've been i'm on there more at the

01:27:18.380 moment you can also get your vulgar history merch including a beautiful drawing of francis howard 0.90

01:27:23.980 that says tits out um written in the font and spelling of her era so it's like t-y-t-t-e-s 0.94

01:27:31.240 o-u-t-t-e-s it's like titties o-t's you can get that design on a t-shirt and lots of things um at 0.98

01:27:37.220 our we have two merch stores so if you go to vulgarhistory.com slash store that's the best

01:27:42.160 one for US people. That's a TeePublic store. Or if you're outside the US, the shipping is a lot

01:27:47.180 better if you go to our Redbubble store, which is vulgarhistory.redbubble.com, where there's also

01:27:51.540 we've got our holiday design, Tits the Season, designed by Karen Moynihan from the Double Love

01:27:56.440 podcast, and also a new design of Lola Montez, which is kind of like pinup girl style done by

01:28:02.760 an artist whose name is Iris, who is from Spain. Anyway, it brings me great joy to know that people

01:28:08.660 are enjoying vulgar history merch and i hope if you give a gift the person who gets it loves it

01:28:13.140 you can also support the podcast on patreon at patreon.com slash ann foster writer that could

01:28:17.940 be a gift i'm just thinking of like last minute things you know digital gifts you get immediately

01:28:22.120 or whatever instead of having to wait for something to ship that might not arrive in time

01:28:25.860 you could gift somebody a membership to the patreon that would be a nice present for a

01:28:31.060 friend of yours who's in the tits out brigade anyway so for one dollar a month or you can pay

01:28:35.500 for like a year up front. That's where I'm thinking that could be the gift. For $1 a month,

01:28:38.980 you get early ad-free access to all episodes. And for $5 a month, which you can also pay up front

01:28:43.800 for a year on behalf of someone else if you wanted, you get the early ad-free access as

01:28:47.800 well as bonus episodes of Vulgar Peace Theater. We talk about costume dramas with Alison Epstein

01:28:52.100 and Lana Wood Johnson. We have an episode coming up shortly. It's kind of a Christmas special.

01:28:57.240 We're talking about a Christmas movie, which is called The Lion in Winter, which does technically

01:29:03.780 take place at christmas anyway that's coming up on vulgar peace theater and then also i do episodes 0.76

01:29:09.960 of so this asshole where i talk about horrible men from history like so many from this episode

01:29:14.080 are there i've done a george villiers one i've done one on james the first slash six and if and 0.98

01:29:18.580 when i get to 500 patreons i'm going to do one about john knox so if that's incentive for you

01:29:24.640 to join you can also get transcripts of this podcast of recent episodes at vulgarhistory.com

01:29:29.980 Thank you to Aveline Malek from The Wordery for providing these transcripts.

01:29:33.720 And yeah, I mean, until next time, like I say this every episode, like, and I've said it every episode for a long time, like tits out, like Frances Howard, like her tits out manner of dress, we now know was not just her, but like she really typified it in the same way that like, yeah, Y2K, lots of people are dressing a certain way, but like Britney Spears looked the best doing it.

01:29:57.520 Frances Howard, I think, was the tits-out icon of her era. Her tits-out lifestyle, as I've since 0.80

01:30:04.520 learned since I recorded the original episode, it transcends just wearing a certain neckline 1.00

01:30:10.360 or even being involved in maybe a murder to make herself happy. All the stuff like challenging 1.00

01:30:15.360 the patriarchy, burning it down for her own happiness. That's goals. When I say tits-out, 0.99

01:30:20.960 that's an important part of the lifestyle. It can be literal tits-out. 0.95

01:30:26.880 It can be tits in, but psychologically tits out. 0.99

01:30:31.200 And so in all of the ways, everybody keep your pants on and your tits out. 0.99

01:30:35.560 And I'll talk to you again next week. 0.98

01:30:40.420 Folger History is hosted, written and researched by Anne Foster and edited by Christina Lumagi.

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01:32:40.100 The world of Sonic the Hedgehog has been thrust into a not-so-dark, not-so-stormy, hard-boiled detective story that probably nobody saw coming.

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Vulgar History - December 20, 2023

Women Behaving Badly, part 2： She Poisoned Her Enemy In Jail (Rerelease)

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