Vulgar History - Women Trapped In Towers, part 8： The Lady In The Eyepatch

00:00:00.000 hello and welcome to another episode of vulgar history the feminist women's history comedy 1.00

00:00:20.500 podcast with me your host and foster and today is the eighth eighth and final episode of this 1.00

00:00:28.980 season which has had the theme women trapped in towers and the assholes who put them there

00:00:34.980 and this is a surprise episode for me and I guess not for you because I told you last week I would

00:00:41.060 be doing another episode but I had seven stories all figured out and then out of nowhere I found

00:00:47.720 I don't even remember how I came across this image just one of the zillion cool history image

00:00:54.920 accounts I follow on Instagram I have to assume I saw a portrait of a woman and I was like wait

00:01:00.680 who is this and then I started reading about her and I was like wait this is a great story and so

00:01:06.440 here we are doing a sudden podcast about it I usually up until now every season I've gone

00:01:13.240 have I well I guess not the first season but I usually like to go in chronological order so I

00:01:19.240 can sort of explain where people are in the history as related to the other women we're

00:01:24.080 talking about this is going back a bit um this all happened long before the saga of sofia dorothea

00:01:31.800 that we talked about last week and who we are talking about is doña anna de mendoza de la

00:01:38.580 cerda y de silva sifuentes princess of eboli duchess of pastrana a woman with 11 words in her 0.98

00:01:46.000 name and a goddamn eye patch on her beautiful face so my references are wikipedia an article 0.99

00:01:53.440 from queencityclassicalfencing.com by scott wright called the princess and the eye patch 0.99

00:01:59.220 why did a fencing blog write about her we'll explain um an article from daily art magazine

00:02:06.960 by joanna kasubowska called rebellious princess of eboli and then an article called difficulties

00:02:13.680 with a capricious princess led to inquisition for saint theresa of avila from nobility.org

00:02:19.080 and then also we're going to be talking about um Saint Teresa of Avila or potentially it's

00:02:25.260 pronounced Avila so I researched her a bit on catholic.org so here's the deal I'm going to put

00:02:34.740 a picture of her up on the Instagram at the same time this episode is published so you can just

00:02:41.340 understand what I'm talking about but it is a glamorous every portrait of her is a glamorous 0.98

00:02:45.640 beautiful woman dark hair pale skin from the 16th century and she is wearing a goddamn eye patch 0.97

00:02:53.740 like not a subtle eye patch like a full-on like black like is she a pirate like eye patch in every 0.99

00:03:01.000 portrait and that's where I was like wait what is going on with this eye patch lady and the story 0.97

00:03:05.120 is great and here we go so Doña Ana de Mendoza de la Cerda y de Silva Sifuentes was born on June

00:03:14.820 1529 1540 and from what i can ascertain doña is the spanish way of saying lady anna so we're just

00:03:24.200 gonna call her anna or anna i guess she was so this is we're dipping back into this is uh when

00:03:33.540 we talked about what was her name isabella of portugal um isabella of castile like we're getting

00:03:40.100 into that period of time where there's all these little uh the the relationship between the various

00:03:46.620 kingdoms of spain and with portugal and they kind of go back and forth quite a bit and honestly

00:03:51.520 after reading anna's story and after reading isabella's story and then i've been reading

00:03:55.960 about um king enrique the fourth aka el impotente because i'm going to be doing a special podcast

00:04:02.440 about that on patreon i'm just like i think i've i'm in a mode to really lean into this kind of

00:04:06.580 Spanish and Portuguese 16th century situation because everything is just like wildly interesting

00:04:15.540 it's like I don't know if this is more interesting than like Tudor era England or if it's just like

00:04:21.200 I know so much about Tudor era England it kind of doesn't surprise me anymore but this is like

00:04:25.040 everything is just ratcheted up the drama the assassinations everything is so extreme

00:04:31.180 um compared to other history i've read i'm just like i need to like read much more about the

00:04:37.560 history of spain and portugal so anna was born 1540 just to put us in a time and place let me

00:04:45.600 just see queen elizabeth i of england was born 1533 so we're looking at similar time period to

00:04:52.440 that is when anna was was a child and growing up but across across the pond over in um well she

00:05:00.340 was born in Spain I think Spain had united by now under Isabella and Ferdinand so Anna was the

00:05:09.820 daughter of Diego Hurtado de Mendoza de la Cerda Duke of Francavia and Prince of Melito Viceroy of

00:05:17.000 Aragon and her mother was Doña Maria Catalina de Silva y Andrande Countess de Cifuentes so that's

00:05:23.580 why Anna's name has all those words in it because it's all her parents titles so she was therefore

00:05:29.680 a little baby and a member of the powerful spanish noble house of mendoza ana endured what

00:05:36.440 appears to be a dysfunctional home life as a child including the embarrassment of her father's

00:05:40.760 infamous philandering something not accepted in 16th century spain which was like a very catholic

00:05:48.240 place to be and well the thing is like when i say very catholic place to be it's like yes but also

00:05:55.740 weren't all the popes like having lovers and was catholic like it's not to say like very catholic

00:06:00.960 that meant everyone was behaving really well but it's just like publicly everyone was supposed to

00:06:05.620 be very um i think this was during after the whole isabella of castile was the queen like she really

00:06:13.500 enforced a certain kind of like queen victoria in the victorian period just kind of like here's

00:06:17.920 my expectation that everybody should behave very well all the time sony her father infamous

00:06:25.580 philanderer not cause some scandal obviously uh little is known of anna's childhood but she was

00:06:32.220 described as passionate intelligent religious and rebellious in her youth and then here's a section

00:06:40.120 i call the fencing incident so it is alleged that around age 12 she lost her right eye in a fencing

00:06:46.580 duel with a servant numerous and widespread explanations for anna's eye patch abound however

00:06:52.120 absolutely no evidence has come to light to support these claims but she did always wear a

00:06:57.080 black eye patch in all of her portraits and this seemed to accentuate and add to her great beauty

00:07:01.600 and appeal and that's the thing if myself and i think the other people who wrote essays that i

00:07:08.380 read about this all the essays kind of start with like so i saw a picture of this 16th century

00:07:12.560 spanish noblewoman with an eye patch and i was like who's this and i'm like that is exactly what

00:07:17.440 happened to me as well i was just like wait what's going on with this eye patch so it really added to

00:07:20.760 her mystique and beauté um so this was maybe a fencing accident but it may also have been a

00:07:27.960 horse accident or maybe a congenital eye condition such that so in 2012 and i'm not sure who paid

00:07:36.140 for this but dr enrique santos bueso of the neurological unit in the ophthalmology department

00:07:42.620 at the university hospital clinico san carlos examined he was hired to do this i do not know

00:07:49.160 why um but I'm glad they did because here's some info he examined Anna's portraits and

00:07:54.420 contemporaneous writings about her to try and figure out what happened to her eye and he's

00:07:58.440 an ophthalmologist so he looked at her portraits and saw what people wrote about her and he was

00:08:04.360 just like this is I didn't write all the quotes from him but he was kind of like this is really

00:08:08.580 hard to do because paintings have artistic license and I don't know like is that what her

00:08:12.540 you know eye other eye looked like etc but ultimately he determined it was likely a

00:08:20.260 traumatic injury rather than a congenital condition so maybe a fencing incident or a

00:08:25.440 horse incident something happened to her eye and she lost her eye but that's based on looking at

00:08:30.180 so like what so she potentially might have had a lazy eye there as there are records showing that

00:08:39.700 she when she was reading she relied upon reading aids like large test text and writing stencils

00:08:46.580 which could indicate that she had um farsightedness which could mean that she had eye issues which

00:08:54.460 means she could have had a lazy eye or maybe like a crossed eye and so she covered her eye with an 0.61

00:08:58.840 eye patch so because she just thought that looked cooler than having a lazy eye but i don't know

00:09:05.500 like if you wanted people to not know she had a lazy eye the eye patch is a bold distraction and

00:09:10.540 does not take attention away from her eye so so we don't actually know but rumor has it legend has

00:09:18.880 it that she lost her her right eye in a fencing incident and the article i read on the um fencing

00:09:24.520 website did note like well this was before there was safety equipment required for fencing but 0.92

00:09:29.720 also it sounds like she's just a 12 year old badass who just like challenged a servant to a 0.97

00:09:34.900 fencing match and then lost her eye so even if there was you know fencing safety equipment i

00:09:39.420 don't know if she would have used it when she was 13 a little girl with one eye a marriage was

00:09:45.900 arranged for her to the portuguese nobleman rui gomez de silva the first prince of eboli

00:09:51.440 this marriage was um arranged or at least recommended by the prince regent who is a man

00:10:01.040 who is he would later become king philippe ii at this point he's just like infanta philippe the

00:10:09.340 second who is just to connect the dots of like everyone we've talked about on the podcast he is

00:10:13.300 the grandson of juana of castile so the great grandson of isabella of castile so rui who is

00:10:22.800 this husband he had grown up alongside philippe and the two were bros for life rui was also the

00:10:28.360 king's personal secretary and a lifelong ride or die bff bro he was also 37 years old and anna was

00:10:35.220 13 so this arranged marriage brought anna to royal court for the first time and you can imagine the

00:10:40.900 sensation of this beautiful 13 year old with an eye patch showing up her husband's wealth and

00:10:46.460 influence provided for financial security and titles so due to his influence in the spanish

00:10:54.240 court Rui her husband which is spelled R-U-Y if you're wondering what how I'm pronouncing this

00:11:00.680 and I hope I'm pronouncing it correctly he was known among foreign ambassadors as Ray

00:11:06.540 Gomez the second which is King Gomez instead of his name Rui Gomez because he was so powerful

00:11:14.140 so they called him like the king because he was so influential so Anna married this extraordinarily

00:11:19.800 influential person and she became well established at royal court the marriage seemingly was not

00:11:26.420 consummated or at least anna did not have any children until she was 18 after which she gave

00:11:31.940 birth to the first of what would be 10 children who's all survived the 10th was born when she

00:11:37.080 was 33 so she's just like having babies one after another one year after anna had her first child

00:11:44.520 king felipe who was the king now got married so he had been married twice before and then he just

00:11:49.520 took his third wife because i guess the first two wives died i assume i've not read up on it

00:11:54.080 but notably his third wife was elizabeth de valois who was the oldest daughter of catherine

00:12:00.300 de medici and the older sister of queen margot who we all know elizabeth was five years younger

00:12:07.020 than anna so they were cool young teens together and became close friends at this point some people

00:12:13.240 and we it's the same thing we see over and over again where it's just like she was a interesting

00:12:18.320 woman who got involved in various political situations so people who did not like her

00:12:23.580 uh got to writing some history alleging things she did so like did she do these things or people

00:12:30.140 just not like her and they made up lies about her i don't know but some people alleged that

00:12:35.640 anna became a mistress of the king and she might have but maybe not if she had then some of her 10

00:12:42.100 children or maybe actually his children but like again i i don't know i do not know you know when

00:12:48.080 i hear people might have been sleeping together my i generally always sat on the side of like

00:12:52.740 yeah they probably were because why not but here i feel like were they i don't know anyway

00:12:56.780 um whether fictional or otherwise these allegations have helped feel dramatic

00:13:02.140 and largely fictional stories on stage and screen because we'll talk later but there's like

00:13:06.800 various plays and movies about anna's life and her eyepatch mystique and around this time her

00:13:13.740 parents who remember had this horrible marriage where the father was philandering

00:13:17.040 um her parents became further estranged and her father left his mother to be with his mistress

00:13:22.840 so this is part of why just to get a little armchair psychology i think having seen her

00:13:28.500 parents go through all this stuff with her father having these affairs and it this is why i don't

00:13:34.160 know if anna would have had an affair i don't know but at the same time it's a king so maybe

00:13:39.320 she would have anyway so her husband rui worked to secure their children's their 10 children's

00:13:45.860 future by purchasing the town of eboli in naples on italy's southeast coast as well as several villas

00:13:51.600 and that's why he became the prince of eboli he's also granted the title duke of pastrana

00:13:59.280 and grandee of spain by his bro philippe in 1572 so this meant that anna was now princess of eboli

00:14:06.740 and the first duchess of pastrana rui died in 1573 the same year that their 10th child was born

00:14:14.740 So Ana at this point was a widowed single mother of 10, just 33 years old, had a sexy

00:14:21.660 eye patch, and was a princess.

00:14:23.920 In grief, Ana and her mother moved to the San Jose Convent in Pastrana, which Ana had 0.59

00:14:29.580 helped fund a few years earlier.

00:14:31.740 And this is where we get into some info re-Teresa of Avila.

00:14:36.180 So this convent had been founded and was run by Teresa Ali Fatim Corella Sanchez de Capeda

00:14:42.780 e ahumada who would later like not that much later but after she died she would later become

00:14:49.160 saint teresa of avila who is as a saint the patron saint of headaches of which spoiler 0.81

00:14:55.380 ana became to her ana was a huge headache to saint teresa so while staying at this convent 0.98

00:15:03.060 ana became known as the princess nun because she was a princess and she was also kind of being a

00:15:09.120 so Teresa had been born in 1515 so she's 30-ish years older than Anna. Teresa her father was

00:15:20.220 rigidly honest and pious but he may have carried his strictness to extremes. Her mother loved

00:15:25.460 romance novels but because her husband objected to these books she hid the books from him. This

00:15:30.680 put Teresa in the middle especially since she liked romance novels too. Her father told her

00:15:36.620 never to lie but her mother told her not to tell her father so she was just in the middle of this

00:15:40.420 like feels frankly very modern situation torn between her two parents so teresa when she was

00:15:47.940 seven years old she convinced her older brother that they should go off to the land of the moors

00:15:51.860 which i think is turkey and beg them out of love to god to cut off our heads there

00:15:57.240 so she wanted to go and like martyr themselves they got as far as the road from the city before

00:16:04.120 uncle found them and brought them back so again Teresa who is the woman who owns the convent where

00:16:11.380 Anna goes was clearly a headstrong person as well as a teenager Teresa cared only about boys clothing 1.00

00:16:19.140 flirting and rebelling when she was 16 her father decided she was out of control and sent her to a

00:16:25.000 convent at first she hated it but eventually she began to enjoy it partly because of her growing

00:16:29.420 love for god and partly because the convent was less strict than her dad still when the time came

00:16:35.200 for her to choose between marriage and religious life she had a tough time making the decision

00:16:38.860 she'd watched a difficult marriage ruin her mother or the arguments between her parents 0.51

00:16:44.120 on the other hand being a nun didn't seem like much fun she finally chose a religious life 0.81

00:16:49.000 and she did it because she thought it was the only safe place for someone as prone to sin 0.82

00:16:54.580 as she was so she was like rebellious and didn't take well to authority and like boys in clothes

00:17:00.120 and flirting but she like didn't like that about herself and so she was just like i'm a bad person 0.97

00:17:04.380 so i should become a nun because that's the best place for me for eight the next 18 years 0.98

00:17:09.900 teresa tried to be as good a nun as possible but found it challenging part of the reason for her

00:17:16.560 trouble was that the convent was not what she thought it would be like like she thought this

00:17:20.720 would be like a very um monastic place where you know everyone's just praying all the time

00:17:27.400 and you know there's no there's no clothes or boys or fashion to distract us however many women who

00:17:33.400 had no place else to go wound up at the convent whether they wanted to be nuns or not they just 0.99

00:17:38.200 kind of like showed up there these women were encouraged to stay away um from the convent to 1.00

00:17:43.620 cut down on expenses because too many people were going there um what teresa saw was that nuns would

00:17:48.700 arrange their veils attractively and wear jewelry prestige depended not on piety but on money so it

00:17:55.240 was just the same like um strict class divisions that there were in the world um there was a steady

00:18:01.260 stream of visitors in the parlor and parties that included young men um so really this convent she

00:18:08.240 ended up at sounds a lot like a university dorm type situation what spiritual life there was

00:18:13.700 involved hysteria weeping exaggerated penance nosebleeds and self-induced visions so she was

00:18:18.900 just like this is not for me at the same time she was very popular and she liked to be liked

00:18:25.160 she found it easy to slip into quote a worldly life which is just like falling back into liking 1.00

00:18:31.140 boys and flirting and jewelry and clothes um let's see teresa got involved in flattery vanity and 1.00

00:18:37.600 gossip then she fell ill with malaria when she had a seizure from the malaria

00:18:44.980 it seemed so obvious that she was dead that after she woke up four days later she learned they had

00:18:51.160 actually dug a grave for her because they thought she was literally dead afterwards she was paralyzed

00:18:56.800 for three years and never got completely well yet instead of helping her spiritually get closer to

00:19:03.520 god her sickness became an excuse for her to stop praying completely so when she was 41 a priest

00:19:11.700 convinced her to like start doing praying again it just sounds this whole thing is just like

00:19:16.160 you know i was reading this and i'm like how did she become a saint like this doesn't sound like

00:19:20.460 the sort of behavior that gets rewarded by becoming a saint anyway um when she was 41 a priest

00:19:27.840 convinced her to try praying again and she did and it turns out now she's really good at it

00:19:31.400 for instance things would happen like her whole body was raised from the ground

00:19:35.740 if she felt like god was going to levitate her she stretched out on the floor and called the

00:19:40.840 nuns to sit on her and hold her down but she was not excited about the fact that she was having 0.52

00:19:46.100 magic god things um she begged god very much not to do this anymore in public but still her

00:19:53.360 she was still really very much dependent on friendships and being around other people and 0.98

00:19:58.060 I was getting in the way of her being like a good nun or whatever.

00:20:01.100 She was very attached to her friends until God told her apparently directly, no longer 0.56

00:20:05.740 do I want you to converse with human beings, but with angels.

00:20:09.980 And then through that advice, she got the freedom that she'd been unable to achieve

00:20:15.580 before.

00:20:16.220 And so she gave up all her friends and God came first in her life.

00:20:21.760 Her friends though were like, wait, we don't like this.

00:20:23.960 So they did not like what was happening to her and they got together to discuss some

00:20:27.080 remedy.

00:20:28.060 for her concluded she had been deluded by the devil they sent a jesuit priest to analyze her

00:20:33.460 the jesuit reassured her that the experiences were from god but soon everyone was making fun

00:20:39.380 of her this just sounds like not this is not a cool convent like in whoopie goldberg and sister

00:20:45.340 act this is just like and she's been here for such a long time i'm just like maybe move on like is

00:20:51.400 this the place for you teresa so one confessor like i guess a priest she went to was so sure

00:20:57.160 that her visions were from the devil that he told her to make an obscene gesture called the fig

00:21:01.500 i don't know what that is so let's just imagine like raising your middle finger every time she

00:21:06.140 had a vision of jesus what why um she did that but didn't like doing that jesus wasn't upset

00:21:14.200 but jesus again apparently directly told her that she was right to do what she was told

00:21:19.520 i don't okay um so she's conversing directly with god and jesus but people are like maybe it's the

00:21:25.720 devil um and everybody around her was just being like lol teresa she's so weird um and then that

00:21:33.920 did get to her even though she didn't have human friends anymore only angels it did bother her so

00:21:40.400 she um uh she complained to her closest friend about the hostility so she still doesn't have

00:21:46.960 one friend apparently and gossip that surrounded her and everyone was making fun of her um and

00:21:52.320 then jesus i don't know if jesus is a person she was complaining to anyway literally jesus told her

00:21:57.220 teresa that's how i treat my friends and teresa responded no wonder you have so few friends

00:22:02.560 jesus like reading this story made me feel like i need to read maybe some more stories about people

00:22:09.620 who became saints because what a saga um so anyway she decided after this convo with her bff jesus

00:22:19.000 that she needed to reform her order of nuns which were the carmelite nuns so age 43 theresa became

00:22:26.320 determined to found a new convent that went back to the basics of a contemplative order like people

00:22:31.260 who just do praying and not all this other stuff a simple life of poverty devoted to prayer

00:22:36.360 when plans leaked out about her first convent saint joseph's she was denounced from the pulpit

00:22:43.080 told by her sister she should raise money for the convent she was already in instead of inventing

00:22:47.940 her own one and was threatened with the spanish inquisition which was still a thing that was

00:22:52.200 happening remember when um isabella and ferdinand started or like really sped things up with that 0.78

00:23:01.100 so the spanish inquisition which were just the catholic people who would like torture people

00:23:04.800 who they thought weren't being catholic in the right way so in fact the town started legal

00:23:10.900 proceedings against her but in the face of all of this she went around calmly as if nothing was

00:23:16.020 wrong because god and her bf jesus had told her to do this and so she knew it was the right thing

00:23:20.400 to do and she did end up creating the convent of saint joseph's where she spent much of her time

00:23:27.320 writing her life story her autobiography she wrote this book not for fun but because she was ordered

00:23:34.580 to i guess by god um many people questioned her experiences oh no um oh maybe she wasn't ordered

00:23:42.420 to by god maybe she's ordered to by the spanish inquisition anyway many people question her

00:23:46.460 experiences and this book would clear her or condemn her so because of this she used a lot of

00:23:51.060 vague writing in her book following a profound thought with the statement but what do i know

00:23:56.860 i'm just a wretched woman oh she was ordered okay the inquisition told her to write her life story

00:24:02.500 sort of like testimony so the inquisition read it and they liked it and so they cleared her

00:24:07.220 they said guess what you're not an infidel or whatever by now she's aged 51 and teresa felt

00:24:15.320 it was time to spread her movement of having nuns go back to the basics so she braved burning sun

00:24:22.240 ice and snow thieves and rat infested inns to found more convents and then she was summoned

00:24:27.880 to pastrana to visit with anna de mendoza and her husband roy and their 10 children

00:24:32.020 so teresa arrived dramatically in a cart covered with curtains and when she arrived anna's mother 1.00

00:24:38.860 fell on her knees and beat upon her breasts because she was so excited to see her

00:24:42.760 um so roy and anna had invited teresa to town to found a monastery for men in a convent of barefoot

00:24:49.740 nuns for women anna and roy were keen to get in teresa's good books because they'd heard how cool

00:24:55.600 she was and wanted to elevate their status by hanging out with her teresa though had been

00:25:00.200 forewarned by the other nuns about what Anna was like in the sense of she had a very difficult

00:25:05.460 personality in Teresa's memoirs she says I found the princess Anna and the prince Rui Gomez who

00:25:12.580 received me very well they gave me a private apartment which was more than I could have

00:25:15.980 expected because the house was so small that the princess had had much of it pulled down and

00:25:20.060 rebuilt not the walls but many things we were there for three months hard times the princess

00:25:24.500 asking me things contrary to our religion I had even determined to leave rather than give in

00:25:30.020 but the prince roy gomez in his gentle way he was very gentle and sensible made his wife come to

00:25:35.720 reason so teresa and anna as does not surprise me they're both very strong-willed people and they

00:25:44.000 did not get along so teresa did not care for anna's domineering character this was largely

00:25:50.460 because anna wanted to see what teresa looked like but teresa always like 24 hours a day kept

00:25:55.260 a veil over her face so no one could see her face Anna and like what could be more relatable I feel

00:26:00.440 like I just want to see your face Anna just really wanted to see what Teresa looked like

00:26:04.820 so she was always peeping through the windows and keyhole hoping to surprise Teresa in one 0.57

00:26:09.100 of her trances because when Teresa was like communing with God and Jesus maybe her veil 0.99

00:26:13.000 would come off I guess Teresa laughed at what she calls Anna's stupidity but in the end this 0.98

00:26:19.320 constant prying worried and became intolerable to her which like understandable too for Teresa 0.97

00:26:23.840 if every time you're in a room by yourself you have to worry that Anna is like peeping through

00:26:29.200 the keyhole like that would be annoying. Anna also really wanted to read Teresa's memoirs and

00:26:35.120 she kept begging her to try and read the memoirs. When Teresa refused Anna wrote to Teresa's

00:26:39.600 superiors like I guess the head church people asking them to order her to let her read the

00:26:44.520 manuscript and the superiors agreed that she could. So Anna quote greedily read the memoirs

00:26:51.100 they excited her imagination and to like all talkative women feeling the necessity of imparting

00:26:57.320 her feelings she committed the breach of confidence of giving the manuscript to a bunch of her servants

00:27:03.060 and her ladies-in-waiting in pages so many people read the memoir so just this manuscript going

00:27:08.940 around and around that eventually the inquisition found out about it and they sent for the book

00:27:14.800 the Inquisition kept the memoirs for 10 years and then returned it but not before all this had

00:27:21.540 caused very great annoyance presumably to Teresa Teresa stopped or she left Anna and Rui's place

00:27:28.640 when the convent was finished it was one year later that Rui died his last moments were aided

00:27:34.740 by two barefooted Carmelite friars who came from Pastrana so again back to Anna so once Rui died

00:27:43.760 Ana and her mother decided to move to the San Jose convent that they had helped finance and

00:27:48.700 that they had commissioned Teresa to create so they arrived with all their luggage and their

00:27:53.660 mates they demanded to be treated like royalty with servants approaching them on their knees 1.00

00:27:58.300 which is a bit much but Teresa refused to order the nuns to do this so she wanted Ana wanted the

00:28:03.920 nuns to approach her on their knees so this is like Ana was thinking it would be sort of like

00:28:09.240 the kind of worldly convent that teresa hated but teresa's convent was very much just like

00:28:16.360 poverty no shoes nobody's treated like royalty so you can see this is not gonna work out well

00:28:24.020 although anna did stay there for three years um after three years she left the convent and

00:28:29.960 returned to madrid even though for reasons i do not know king philippi did not want her back there

00:28:36.340 but she went back anyway because no one's going to tell her what to do not long after this her

00:28:41.620 mother died and then followed shortly thereafter by her father however her father having married

00:28:47.520 another in an attempt to secure a male heir because Anna was their only child had left his

00:28:52.540 second wife pregnant which threatened Anna's inheritance so with Rui dead remember he had

00:29:00.620 been the secretary of the king the king's new undersecretary of state was Rui's protege

00:29:05.100 antonio perez antonio was a married man just a bit older than anna and so anna and antonio

00:29:13.180 developed a close relationship which led people obviously because all these gossips people

00:29:18.980 alleged they were having an affair but it may have just been a political thing but maybe they

00:29:22.980 were having an affair she was sexy eyepatch lady their relationship even their friendship was

00:29:29.740 apparently hidden from the king so the king didn't know that they were hanging out with each other

00:29:34.400 historians are divided as to why that was the case some claimed it was due to impropriety

00:29:40.620 because antonio was married and they thought the king wouldn't like his married secretary hang out

00:29:45.620 with a single lady while others claim it was because anna had renewed her her status of being

00:29:53.340 the king's mistress and so she didn't want him to know for that reason we don't know but what we do

00:30:00.680 note is that Ana continued to correspond with many influential people and expressed her ideas

00:30:05.980 on life, religion, and politics freely, which gained her friends as well as enemies. And then

00:30:11.820 in 1578, if you're like, and what does this story have to do with women trapped in towers? Like

00:30:18.060 Ana's just like out there living her eyepatch life. But here we go. So in 1578, Antonio Perez

00:30:25.180 instigated the murder of juan de escobedo a servant of the king's half-brother juan de

00:30:31.660 austria so okay again antonio anna's new friend uh was behind the murder of a servant of the

00:30:42.040 king's half-brother and apparently king felipe had authorized this because his half-brother was up to

00:30:48.800 no good i guess but the king was soon overcome with guilt for his having been responsible or

00:30:55.100 having authorized this murder which again he told them to do to clear his conscience the king decided

00:31:00.840 to go after the people he held responsible for the murder which were antonio and anna so anna was

00:31:06.760 placed under house arrest in 1581 um kept in her palace in pastrana the same place she had hung out 0.99

00:31:13.000 spying on teresa she was forbidden to see her children or to manage her estate the king stripped 0.91

00:31:18.960 her of her parental rights and property one year later anna probably could have begged for

00:31:24.300 forgiveness and it probably would have been granted because this harsh punishment was not

00:31:28.540 typically applied to aristocrats like her but being a strong-willed person she decided not to

00:31:35.180 apologize to bear her punishment and to make her point this way by just being like you're gonna

00:31:39.860 trap me away fine i'll just be trapped away then this relatively harsh treatment of her compared to

00:31:45.880 other aristocrats helps fuel allegations that the king maybe had been having her as a mistress like

00:31:51.500 maybe he was sexually jealous of her maybe being involved with antonio and that's why he tweeted

00:31:56.520 her badly um what about antonio her like co-conspirator even though again the king told

00:32:03.400 him to do this um so in 1589 10 years after they found out 10 years after the murder antonio was

00:32:12.480 finally charged with the murder this led to riots and unrest by antonio's supporters um

00:32:17.880 so then antonio escaped to aragon in exile he published scathing defamatory accounts of king

00:32:24.200 philippe's court assertions of when unchallenged contributing to the spanish black legend what was

00:32:30.840 the spanish black legend tell me wikipedia so the black legend in spanish la leyenda negra

00:32:40.300 is a theo theorized historiographical tendency consisting of anti-spanish and anti-catholic

00:32:47.280 propaganda um its roots date back to the 16th century which is what we're in in this story

00:32:54.780 when it was originally a political and psychological weapon that was used by

00:32:58.340 spain's northern european rivals in order to demonize the spanish empire its people and

00:33:03.400 culture minimize spanish discoveries and achievements and counter its influence and

00:33:07.740 power in world affairs so the assimilation of originally dutch and english 16th century

00:33:15.780 propaganda into mainstream history is theorized to have fostered an anti-hispanic biased among

00:33:21.320 subsequent historians along with a distorted view of the history of spain latin america and other

00:33:26.100 parts of the world um so this propaganda found its basis in real events during the spanish

00:33:33.740 conquest of the americas which did involve atrocities but often employed lurid and

00:33:38.140 exaggerated depictions of violence while ignoring similar behavior by other powers so that's what

00:33:44.560 that is so antonio published these defamatory accounts of what king philippe was up to

00:33:51.580 and that contributed to the spanish black legend so to people thinking that the spanish royal family 0.91

00:33:58.540 of this time was um really awful so anna meanwhile just still in her sort of like screw you i'm not

00:34:06.960 gonna apologize state of mind she spent 13 years imprisoned in her castle die she died on february

00:34:13.480 2nd 1592 aged 52 apparently depressed and ill do i do we know that i don't know um

00:34:22.440 so but her legacy there's a character called princess eboli based on anna in the opera don

00:34:30.060 carlos by verdi she's also the subject of a novel called that lady by kate o'brien and in 1955

00:34:39.460 there was a film adaptation of that novel starring olivia de haviland as anna in a sexy eyepatch and

00:34:45.800 i have not watched that movie but i'm excited to watch that movie because it looks pretty great

00:34:50.640 um in 2008 julia ormond played her in a movie called la congera de el escorial and then a tv

00:34:58.820 movie in 2010 um anna was played by belen rueda in a film called la princesa de iboli and then

00:35:05.840 here we go if you're just like how much cooler could this story be in 2018 the children's animated

00:35:11.380 tv show arthur about arthur the aardvark and you know his sister dw is that his friend anyway

00:35:17.820 aired an episode called the princess problem where uh dw was introduced to anna as an example of a

00:35:25.700 handicapped princess explaining that anna was blinded in a childhood sword fight so that is

00:35:32.920 a hundred percent the first person i've talked about on this podcast who then made an appearance

00:35:37.000 on arthur so you know the legend continues and that is doña ana de mendoza de la serra y de

00:35:46.240 silva si fuentes princess of eboli duchess of pastrana a sudden last minute addition to this

00:35:52.460 podcast season and i can't imagine it without her because what a saga well and then this is where i

00:35:59.480 was like oh i don't know if there's enough stuff about her to make a whole podcast episode but then

00:36:03.280 i got the stuff about teresa and i'm like oh here we go there's lots to talk about here so

00:36:09.700 it's time to score her anna on our scandalous scale so and then we'll do a rundown of the 0.96

00:36:20.340 whole season where everybody fell this season relative to other things so anna's scandalous 0.99

00:36:26.780 unconsciousness here's the thing now the stuff like how she went to the um like did she have

00:36:33.580 the affair with the king people say maybe she did did she have the affair with antonio maybe like

00:36:40.080 just the the eye patch in general like just her whole aura feels very scandalous to me

00:36:46.720 and i mean the fact that she was involved in this murder etc is well that's more scheminess i guess

00:36:53.420 but it's the sort of thing where like for everybody in the season and it's really become

00:36:57.320 so clear to me researching all these women how much of the scandalousness often is just like

00:37:01.820 people who didn't like these women writing stuff about them to make them sound bad and in her case 1.00

00:37:06.560 making her sound bad would also was a way to like further demonize the spanish court who maybe 1.00

00:37:11.800 politically wanted to make look bad so we don't actually know if anna had an affair with the king 1.00

00:37:18.300 if she had an affair with antonio but she did lose her eye and was gorgeous so scandaliciousness 0.71

00:37:27.660 and she was involved in a murder seemingly but i can't score her too high on that because it's not

00:37:33.740 confirmed if like what her involvement was in these things i'm just gonna give her a six for

00:37:40.280 scandaliciousness but um scheminess i feel like is where she might come into her own because of

00:37:47.760 her involvement in this in the murder of the half-brother servant but then also just to 0.80

00:37:53.800 do as well in royal court as she did inherently would have involved a lot of scheminess and um 1.00

00:37:59.800 just a lot of schemes i think would have had to be there for her to do as well as she did

00:38:06.020 for people to to not like her as much as they did i don't know i feel like that was 0.95

00:38:10.700 maybe just her personality more than her like actual schemes i'm gonna give her a six for 0.94

00:38:15.960 scheminess as well her significance as per always like i put in this category because 1.00

00:38:22.000 for women who maybe weren't scandalous or schemey but have a high level of significance just so 0.99

00:38:28.620 everybody can get a high score in something but for her like her significance is like well she

00:38:32.480 had 10 children did her 10 children do cool stuff like i'm sure they did i didn't research that

00:38:37.100 but her significance like just having this cool eye patch the fact that people keep finding her

00:38:45.360 like her legend will not go away because she just looks like she looks just as interesting as she

00:38:52.500 was her significance level though I don't know but she did she funded Teresa creating these 0.63

00:39:00.840 convents which was surely significant like being one of her patrons um I'm gonna give her five 1.00

00:39:09.460 for significance the sexism bonus I'm giving her a 10 like a full 10 and that's because 0.95

00:39:15.000 she just the way that well like the fact that she and antonio were both involved in this murder

00:39:21.120 allegedly um and then she ended up being in jail for 13 years and he just like went off to like

00:39:26.420 live his life is super sucks and then well just the way that she was treated

00:39:33.080 like just the the fact that she was treated in this way by everybody because she was you know 0.98

00:39:38.980 like a strong woman who said what she thought um although like which is not to say she wasn't also 0.99

00:39:43.700 an asshole like she wanted the nuns to treat her like royalty and approach her on their knees like 1.00

00:39:48.060 when she was also supposed to be a nun like she sounds like a nightmare person but also the double 1.00

00:39:55.140 standard of how she was treated versus how antonio was treated that's a 10 so then we get to what's

00:40:00.000 so that's a 27 for anna which puts her let's see oh right in the middle of so

00:40:12.680 margaret pole from the season also got a 27 isabel of portugal also got a 27

00:40:19.520 so we'll go through the season margaret of anjou got a 26 margaret pole anna de mendoza and isabel

00:40:27.320 of portugal all got a 27 arbella stewart and margaret douglas her grandmother both got a 28

00:40:32.900 sophia dorothea of cela our beloved sd got a 31 and then queen margot marguerite de valois is the

00:40:42.480 top of the charts with a 37.5 the highest score anyone has ever gotten in vulgar history so i

00:40:51.640 think you know i'm happy with the spread of this season like the lowest score 26 highest score 37.5 1.00

00:40:58.800 but really we saw a whole bunch of different kinds of women a whole bunch of different situations as

00:41:03.960 to why they were put in prison and the assholes who put them there so we really got into the

00:41:09.880 the thesis of this season and i'm really happy that i learned about anna because i think she

00:41:16.720 really wraps things up in an interesting way and really is sort of pointing me in this direction

00:41:20.680 of like i feel like if there is another season of the show which i hope there will be but who knows

00:41:25.360 i feel like it might be all like spanish slash portuguese people because this is

00:41:30.080 the drama of it all really interesting well and then theresa following in here you know we're

00:41:36.400 not scoring theresa but i feel like she's got she's got high marks at least just for scheminess

00:41:42.700 um yeah so now i'm just like should i read more about saints i don't know anyway but i feel like

00:41:49.240 reading more about Spanish and Portuguese people will inherently find me some more saints to read

00:41:55.200 about so that is this episode it is the season finale of season four of vulgar history thank

00:42:02.340 you so much for listening this has been so much fun to do um and just a reminder of some things

00:42:10.960 you can look at so if you're just like no and don't go away any more of your beautiful vocal

00:42:15.640 fry talking about stuff so on my patreon page which is patreon.com slash ann foster writer if

00:42:22.220 you pledge money there um there's a back there's an archive of my past bonus episodes there and 0.91

00:42:28.860 then i'm also doing one at least one bonus episode per month um often these are the so this asshole

00:42:35.380 spin-off talking about various men often various men who were involved in the stories we did this

00:42:41.620 past season the next one i'm going to be doing is going to be about enrique the fourth aka el

00:42:46.800 impotente i'm going to be posting that soon there so if you pledge money on patreon but it's not

00:42:52.600 just like pay money and get podcasts it's like you pay money you get the podcasts but what the

00:42:57.820 money that you pledge goes towards is me having the ability to do more episodes of this podcast

00:43:03.380 so that's super helpful another super helpful thing you can do just to try and help the podcast

00:43:12.200 succeed because the better it does the more I am able to devote time to doing more episodes of it

00:43:17.500 the easiest thing you can do is to go into your preferred podcast listening place and to rate us

00:43:25.360 five stars and give a nice little review and to subscribe if you're listening somewhere where

00:43:31.120 there's not a place to put reviews like I know from my stats a lot of people listen to this on

00:43:36.400 Spotify for instance I don't think there's a place there to review so you can just like sneak into

00:43:39.940 some other podcast app like the Apple one or whatever put a little review there like even

00:43:44.160 if that's not where you listen super appreciate it and um my merch store is also there that's

00:43:53.980 another way that the money from the merch goes towards me and this podcast and hopefully being

00:43:58.220 able to do more episodes and also I have a lot of fun doing it so if you go to teespring.com

00:44:03.500 slash stores slash vulgar history you get to our merch store and I wanted to because I forget if

00:44:08.460 I've already explained this I have not yet figured out a design for Ana de Mendoza but I figure 0.97

00:44:16.880 it's just going to be like her face and on top of it it's going to say tits out because 0.97

00:44:22.460 not since francis tits out howard have i truly come across a woman who just really embodies the 0.98

00:44:28.880 spirit of things that i admire anyway so we have various products in there the most recent one i

00:44:35.560 put in um it's a bad french translation of our tagline mask on tits out so it says mask sir

00:44:44.120 san dior you know what because of the ana de mendoza i feel like maybe i could do that but

00:44:49.840 in spanish so we'll see that as well there's also you know bodica mary toft lady jane gray 0.86

00:44:58.400 francis howard um just her picture and it says tits out and a classic anyway um

00:45:05.300 so that's teespring.com slash stores slash vulgar history and then um on instagram if you want to

00:45:15.920 see i mean you could also google anna de mendoza eyepatch you can see her picture but i'm going to

00:45:19.700 post a picture of her on instagram which is vulgar history pod on twitter we're at vulgar history and

00:45:25.140 also i want to mention on the instagram i every now and then i post stories and stuff asking for

00:45:29.880 ideas and suggestions and your thoughts about different people and that's how sometimes i find

00:45:34.380 cool people to talk about for instance in like january of this past year i was like who should

00:45:39.920 i write about and then my instagram friend hayley who i figured out who it was hayley bless you

00:45:47.000 said like well what about Sophia Dorothea of Sela and I was like well I don't know who that is and

00:45:51.020 then suddenly she became my muse for this whole season so if you like follow me on Instagram

00:45:55.700 that's a way to have some informal contact with me as well and I guess that's everything oh I

00:46:02.060 wanted to also say like I started this podcast like season one was pre-COVID and then like

00:46:08.440 everything else has been kind of during COVID um and so that's why I started saying keep your mask

00:46:15.040 on but now because of vaccines and stuff there's some situations in which you don't need to keep

00:46:20.600 your mask on so i wanted to clarify because i can't change what i say because that's what i

00:46:26.240 say at the end of each podcast and i can't change it because i love saying it so if you look at um

00:46:33.240 for instance the movie um queen margot the french film which actually i've um which is not streaming

00:46:42.540 anywhere i talked about it a while ago but i've ordered a dvd of it and it should be arriving

00:46:47.220 soon and when i watch it i think i i'm gonna do like a live watch of it on instagram or something

00:46:52.400 anyway there's a very sexy scene in that movie where queen margo um before the massacre and

00:46:58.840 stuff happens where she just like puts on a mask a zorro mask like just covering her eyes and just 1.00

00:47:03.780 like this cute gorgeous dress with like a cape and she just goes to like a random sex with

00:47:07.380 strangers in an alleyway because it's a real weird movie so i'm like well what about that

00:47:12.220 kind of mask you know like I'm saying mask like a mask to help with COVID keep that on or if you're

00:47:19.200 in a situation where you don't need to keep that on then put on a sexy Zorro type match mask and

00:47:24.680 that can be your mask you have on I was almost thinking like with the Ana de Mendoza of it all 0.98

00:47:30.660 I could be like keep your eye patch on tits out but I feel like her eye patch is her tits out you 0.94

00:47:36.220 know it's like Frances Howard first got my attention through portraits because she has 0.99

00:47:39.900 these wild necklines of just like look it's my tits and so I was like well who is this and I

00:47:45.600 read about her Ana de Mendoza like her eye patch had a similar effect of me where I'm just like 0.96

00:47:49.720 who's this person why is she wearing an eye patch so anyway all of which to say keep your mask on 0.95

00:47:55.340 and your tits out hopefully I'll talk to you all again real soon 0.99

00:48:09.900 The war is over and both sides lost. 0.99

00:48:19.460 Kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered like bones in the dust.

00:48:24.460 Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world,

00:48:29.100 praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight.

00:48:32.380 But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins.

00:48:36.100 this is old school adventuring

00:48:38.540 at it's most cruel

00:48:39.880 your torch ticks down in real time

00:48:42.300 and when that flame dies

00:48:43.680 something else rises to finish the job

00:48:45.960 this is a brutal rules light nightmare

00:48:48.260 with a story that emerges organically

00:48:50.960 based on the decisions that the characters make

00:48:53.560 this is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s

00:48:56.000 and man, it is so good to be back

00:48:58.280 join the Glass Cannon podcast

00:48:59.600 as we plunge into the shadow dark

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00:49:15.920 Reality TV is messy.

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00:49:20.100 And the internet, completely unhinged.

00:49:22.800 Welcome to Roxanne and Chantel,

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00:49:27.220 break down reality TV, celebrity drama,

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Vulgar History - June 23, 2021

Women Trapped In Towers, part 8： The Lady In The Eyepatch

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Transcript