Gay Rulers of England

Log Cabin gays go WAY back.

Just remember, as Princess Di found out on her wedding night-- all rulers are not 12 inches.

Richard I was a 6'5" warrior with romantic sensibilites, and hair "between red and gold".

FUCK ME.

No, really. Fuck me, Richard. And I'll return the favor.

I told my sister that James I was considered gay or bisexual. She got really upset with me, because she thought King James was the author of the King James Bible. She was quite startled that he wasn’t.

King James was a twink chaser

It goes all the way back to William II "Rufus", son of William the Conqueror. All sorts of wild stories about him until someone shot him to death with an arrow.

Wasn't Richard the 2nd supposedly family?

I wonder what would have happened if people still had to read the bible in Latin, rather than having an English translation.

[quote]Who knew James I was a homo?

Most likely his mother, Mary! Queen of Scots.

[quote]Who knew James I was a homo?

Most everyone knew that James had 'favourites' at court. It's probable that the intensification of anti-gay rhetoric in the KJV bible was due to the translation scholars attempting to 'preach' at the king.

Righties likely believe that Jesus et al spoke in Middle English.

Edward II and his boytoy Gaveston. Christopher Marlowe wrote a play about it.

R4 James was the ‘author’in a way. The Bible was translated under his auspices and bears his name. I don't think he would have allowed any translations that he didn't approve of.

Queen Anne liked clam

R13, the only agenda which was officially at issue was whether or not the bible utilized renderings favorable to Catholic dogma, like the Douay Rheims; the king wanted a Protestant "authorized" bible to serve a Protestant state church. Unqualified to produce this himself, he relied upon Protestant theologians and scholars to create it. As far as I am aware, he did not engage in proofreading or otherwise tampering with the work. Had he registered a specific objection, it would have been notable more as commentary on himself than on the bible.

R15 James oversaw and gave instructions to the translators.

On what, specifically, R16? Concerning what? Was his area of expertise Greek, Hebrew, or Latin? Did he have an opinion on the relative merits of manuscript families?

More pertinent, R16, where are 𝑦𝑜𝑢 coming from? Which religious persuasion?

This thread is poisoned.

▲ Someone is really upset that there's pushback to the idea that King James micromanaged the KJV bible, and is using socks to express their displeasure.

Of course, you could respond to the argument with links to sources backing up your views. Right?

American Dataloungers just love gossip about English royalty without a SHRED of documented evidence.

I'd be more inclined to pay attention to Starkey

Yeah, I don't know what this is exactly. The need to personalize everything? The need to find an actual villain in every story? But whatever is going on, no, King James did not actually and literally write the King James Bible. It's a weird and silly idea that seems like it has no actual purpose, but I suppose it will live on forever anyway.

[quote]R20: American Dataloungers just love gossip about English royalty without a SHRED of documented evidence.

Per this thread, which of us are you talking about?

[quote]I'd be more inclined to pay attention to Starkey

The same David Starkey who, in 2020, insisted 'that people should not "go on about" slavery because it had been abolished in 1833 and that "Slavery was not genocide, otherwise there wouldn't be so many damn blacks in Africa or in Britain would there? An awful lot of them survived ...'? The self-described conservative historian who is now the darling of 'The Critic,' a British right-wing culture war magazine?

The video excerpt you posted has no relevance to this thread, unless you want to use it to say, with Starkey, that people cannot be reduced to a single characteristic (such as being gay). But identifying which historical figures practiced same-sex relations is not doing that; one would only make such an argument if one thought that being gay was some sort of negative which would be better de-emphasized.

It's like we're all in second grade. Yes, King James was gay. No, this has pretty much nothing to do with the Bible, really, deep down. No, it does not have much of an impact at all about anything. He was gay. He fucked twinks. He also brought some people together to provide a new and very poetic translation of this mess of Hebrew and Greek texts. Yes, all of that happened, and the fact that King James made it happen really wasn't that big a deal.

Some of that deadpan comes across as sarcasm, R23. Did you mean it that way?

R20 seems to want to imply that assertions that Richard I and James I were homosexual is propaganda being spread about by ignorant Americans.

King James was gay, just like Marsha threw the first brick.

No I'm not really being sarcastic, PD. I get that it is ironic. I get gay guy sponsoring a translation of a deeply homophobic book. But there is so much more going on here, that it actually irritates me. King James was a complete hypocrite, who fucked guys and espoused executing other guys for fucking guys that it deeply pisses me off. No, sarcasm is not actually what I'm going for. But more importantly, I think we can all debate the Bible and what it is or isn't without pretending that King James actually wrote the fucking thing.

And not sure what you are saying r25. If you mean nobody was actually "gay" in the 1600s, you kind of have a point. But he fucked guys, no question, he fucked guys. Whether that alone makes him gay in the modern sense, well that is a whole big thing.

Agreed, R26/R27.

But I think R25 means that he thinks King James wasn't homosexual, and that it somehow constitutes propaganda to say that he was. This viewpoint is being spread out across several poster identities (socks) on this thread.

which is a perfect case of apologists arguing about the wrong things r28. Whether King James was gay, or just a guy-fucker, should actually be completely immaterial. But they can't help themselves.

Yes, R7, I believe Richard II should be on the list.

I'm not sure what the evidence for that is r30. He was a kind of early Renaissance prince in a kingdom that just didn't like anything but slashing and fighting and being a loudmouth pain in the ass. But was he actually gay? I am not entirely sure. But maybe.

𝐑𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐈𝐈 𝐨𝐟 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝

Richard II became King of England in 1377 at the tender age of ten. His reign began successfully but was marred by tyranny, revolts and bad decision-making and he was deposed in 1399 by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, who became King Henry the Fourth. One of the members of Richard’s circle was Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford. Their close friendship was disagreeable to the political establishment of the day and the chronicler Thomas Walsingham, who disliked de Vere, claimed that he and Richard II were in a homosexual relationship.

James I had six children, and Anne had seventeen pregnancies, five of which were live births.

So you have to wonder how "gay" they really were.

And again, I have to go with "possible" but here are his enemies trying to tar him with some evil "charge" of being a sodomite, after he was overthrown. Was he? Yeah, maybe, it is entirely possible. In hundreds of years, I assume at least some English kings were gay, just by law of averages, but was this some chronicler, probably some damn monk, trying to get back at him for some bullshit nonsense? yeah, also possible.

And that was about Richard, by the way.

For James, yes, he and Anne, his Queen, did seem to have a happy marriage by all accounts. I suspect she was just intelligent enough to deal with the reality of her situation, and his, and not be a big pain in the ass about the whole thing. I could be wrong, but honestly, with James, there is a hell of a lot of smoke and I suspect people just understood the situation. He still loved her in his own way, but I really think he had boys on the side.

R27 and R28 what I was trying to convey was whenever articles like this pop up with claims that certain historical figures were gay when there’s really no way to definitively prove it, I have to wonder what’s the point. But there’s the flip side - maybe the point is to say it often enough so people will accept it, no questions asked. That’s what happened with Marsha, and her brick.

Whether they actually had sex with men is really immaterial as these historical figures were in no way what we would call “gay” today. In one regard, Starkey is correct in that you can’t boil down historical figures to just one aspect of their life. It’s also worth noting that rumours about “X” being gay could have been, and often were spread by enemies at the time, or revisionists after the fact.

Sure, there’s some curiosity about historical gays, even interesting to read some claims, but at the end of the day, does it really matter to us, today, in 2022 that King James, King Louis XIII, Alexander, Hadrian, James Buchanan, et al may have had sex with men?

Nobody was “lgbtq” in the sixteenth century.

I wasn't a ruler, though I did start the Gaiety Theater and would have been Queen if asked.

And I still wish somebody would do the movie of Frances Carr. She had it all, married to King James' boytoy, I assume after he got bored, and then caught up in a scandalous marriage, scandalous divorce from the Earl of Essex (okay, bitch, annulment, but come on) and even more scandalous murder of the guy who really, really didn't want the boytoy to marry her. She had all the Dynasty moments, including dramatic courtroom scenes! She was awesome in her horrible way, and ultimately got away with all of it.

Well, as I said, I think you have a point r36. There was no "gay" exactly, for many centuries. You mention Hadrian, and that is a very interesting case. He wasn't gay, he was a typical Roman who fucked guys as well as women, and never thought that made him anything other than a very typical Roman patrician. Of course he fell madly in love with one of the guys he fucked, and started a whole damn cult about it, but that was just a perk of being emperor. There was no "gay" about it. Just sex and love.

[quote]but at the end of the day, does it really matter to us, today, in 2022 that ...

On this, I have to ask, Does it matter to us at all, really, about any of it? Well, no, not really. Who Cleopatra fucked, or Queen Victoria, or Julius Caesar (lots of guys, probably), or any of it? I don't know. It's fun to ask, and it's actually homophobic to say I don't care about how much straight sex they had, but damn, the slightest gay sex and it's suddenly traumatic. I think that is mostly what is happening when people contemplate the sex lives of long dead monarchs.

[quote] Does it matter to us at all, really, about any of it?

Doesn't matter to me, Will.

Me neither r42. It gives me fever when I think about Antinous though. Supposedly, Antinous has the most recognizable face in ancient Rome, which is not a bad legacy from Emperor Hadrian.

Bravo, R9, bravo!

R37, yeah, they were. They didn't use the term LGBT, nor did anyone use terms like gay or straight, but clearly there were people attracted to their own sex

R40, there wasn't really any evidence he was fucking a ton of women

[quote]R33: James I had six children, and Anne had seventeen pregnancies, five of which were live births. So you have to wonder how "gay" they really were.

One could just as easily wonder how 'straight' they were. At this distance, it's impossible to tell whether any of the 'progeny' were the actual offspring of James I, or the results of a bedding proxy.

What's coming through clearly in these various posts insisting that we can't know and that it doesn't matter, that nobody was gay in the past, or LGBT, or that they all also slept with women, is a loathing for homosexuals, plainly rooted in current far-right cultural antagonisms. Yes, it can be acknowledged that applying today's terminology to same-sex relationships of the past is problematic, but one gets the sense that that is not the real issue with this poster and his socks. He's a gay hater, and a conservative Christian to boot.

I've got the troll and his socks on ignore but James I was quite probably gay and he also started a lot of hysteria about witches.

Having legitimate heirs was their duty and had zero to do with their sexuality.

Please, be mindful that for much of period described the nation was and in "The United Kingdom." If you abbreviate to "UK" you can even save yourself the bother of typing "England."

So many keys.

[...]

Lot of same sex inclinations in the Stuart family. James I and VI clearly preferred men, his father Henry Darnley, Lord Stuart clearly also. Some rumors about Charles I in his youth but if true probably a passing phase. William III is said to have had male favorites. Anne had at least deep romantic relationships with women. Among the Stuart pretenders, Henry Stuart (PrInce Henry Cardinal Duke of York or Henry IX) clearly exclusively homosexual.

R47 “Poisoned Dragon”.

A “bedding proxy”? What the fuck are you talking about? Unless he had an unfaithful wife, the chances that James did not father all those pregnancies is non-existent. Where did you get your historical “knowledge”, exactly? A porn film? Do you know how fanatically religious these people were? He thought that God had put him on the throne and that his seed was sacred. “Here, groom of the stool…you fuck her tonight. I’m having fun with Paolo” didn’t happen 🙄

And continually using the word “one” doesn’t make you sound clever. Or unequivocally British. Just so you know.

James may have been gay. Gay men can often get it up for women if they have to. Lots and lots of previously married men with children come out later in life. We know this. Impossible to know now what James’s preference truly was - but a question mark about whether he was really gay given how often he impregnated his wife is not homophobic. It’s just a question.

Oh, and David Starkey was right. Th Atlantic Slave Trade was not genocide. He expressed it badly, and apologised, but his point was correct. Genocide is when you murder entire generations of people to try and be rid of the race or nationality - like the Holocaust - but, while their lives were not respected, African slaves were not killed en masse, because they were wanted for labour. And he is frustrated (as aee a lot of historians) that people like you are want to scream about the slave trade yet can’t be arsed to read a damn book about it.

Drop your posturing narrative and join a library. Learn something.

[...]

[...]

Not England but Frederick the Great was gay. He's probably related to the rulers of England.

Enclyclopaedia Britannica weighs in on the KJ Bible.

Damn! A pox upon the linking!

R52 repeats right-wing propaganda but tells other people to read books

And has the bizarre view that religion prevents people from committing adultery

After the gay-ridden Stuarts those fat German Hanovers seemed to have brought in a lot of straight energy.

[...]

Across the Channel: Henri III of France.

R60 these guys were under more pressure than one can imagine to produce heirs.

It also depends on definitions of gay and bisexual.

[...]

I am not sure it's all that clear historically r63. I feel completely gay. I like men, and I like sex with men. But that is a fairly recent development. I know we go apeshit on these threads about gay and bisexual and trans and a whole lot of other things, but really, historically, people were not "gay" or "straight" for the most part. It was a much more ambiguous thing.

Haven't you people read Ronald Firbank's great piece of history, "Women Queens of England"?

Just because someone fucks the opposite sex to procreate does not mean it's especially enjoyable to that person.

Some royal spouses loathed each other but still had kids.

True, r66, but it's sort of about self-definition. And that is fairly recent. Though again, I like it. I am happy to be gay. But I live in a world and a culture that defines that. I don't know what I would be 2000 years ago.

R9 She really didn’t meet him because she escaped to England and was taken under arrest for the rest of her life. R33 Louis XIV brother was openly gay. He had a long term companion yet he was married and had children. He also protected many other gays because Louis really couldn’t do anything because it was his brother. Philippe arranged orgies which lasted days and invited gays of highest society with young twinks. Louis stopped it and it was probably the only thing he was able to do. Philippe had an active gay circle. Amazing. This was in 17th century.

The King James Bible wasn't really a fresh translation - the 'translators' (really editors) tweaked and tarted up the existing 16th century Tyndale/Coverdale translation.

Royalty has its privileges r68. Louis' father, Louis XIII also had his gay lovers apparently. He and his wife did manage to have a couple of sons, but in general he definitely preferred the company of young men.

R70 True. Louis XIII didn’t care too much about his wife, who was seen as a great beauty. It took decades to get children.

Damn, DL ate my post. I wanted to say, Anne of Austria deserves some respect. She could have been a lazy, grasping bitch like most regents were in history, but instead she took her job seriously and raised young Louis to be one of the greatest monarchs Europe ever saw. Good for her. And she managed to get two sons out of her gay husband, so she had some skills.

[...]

Fine, Bi, that nobody knew what it meant, even in French. This is what I mean. The very concept changes, and people change with it. Why was the Roman Empire so "bisexual" and we aren't? Not sure.

weird shit happening with posting. Anyone else having this shit?

R4 everyoine knows it was Elmore James.

[quote] James I had six children, and Anne had seventeen pregnancies, five of which were live births.

James I was a proud trans man, having given birth to all 6 of his children.

The OP's video was brought to us by someone called "Lindsay Holiday" who is unqualified.

[quote] Haven't you people read Ronald Firbank's great piece of history, "Women Queens of England"?

Can you give us a precis?

R12 the best Derek Jarman film is his adaptation of Marlowe's EDWARD II. Beautiful, dark, intimate work.

It's one of my favorite YouTube channels.

How hot was Richard I?

Gurls, Elizabeth I was the king of England, James I was the queen of England

The best Derek Jarman film was the one when they went nude.

[quote] All sorts of wild stories

[quote] supposedly

[quote] Most likely

[quote] It's probable that

[quote] perhaps

[quote] He's probably related

[quote] was quite probably

[quote]R60: gay men CAN'T and DON'T get it up for women, especially "often" as you stated. Both you and Poisoned Dragon are fucking anti-gay and keep pushing the homophobic bullshit that gay men get aroused by women.

R60/ DARKGEMINILORD / Anscher sock, I've never said anything resembling that, ever. Where do you come off with that shit?

As for R52, it has been blocked, and even hovering the mouse over the 'R' number cannot fully recover it, since the post is too long to see in a preview.

[quote]R50: Stop trying to make the Bible pro-gay.

Who's said anything like that on this thread?

R87 You need to know that DarkMingeLord can read your mind.

That's a useful skill for SJWs who like to cancel people who commit Word-Crime and Thought-Crime

R88, since when is 'DARKMINGELORD' / Anscher a 'SJW'?

If a male identifies as an 'SJW', that means they ARE an 'SJW'!

Where / When has that poster ever done that, R90? It's an anti-trans troll, one of many Anscher socks.

'SJW' is not something people concerned with social justice ever call themselves; it's a far-right epithet used to mock the sincerity of such people.

Most people are aware that Camilla is related to Edward VII's mistress Alice Keppel.

However, they're generally not aware that she's also related to another piece of royal fluff – William III's boytoy Arnold Joost van Keppel, who was created Earl of Albemarle.

The current Lord Albemarle, Rufus, who's a cousin of hers, is an industrial designer. He used to live in New York, and ran a shirtline. He has a son.

The British Government were fighting tooth and nail recently in the courts to suppress Lord Mountbatten's private life in a battle with author Andrew Lownie, blowing a heap of public money to do it – the latter an absolute 1st Class howling scandal. Mountbotty fucked anything that walked. It's not the bisexuality that bothers them: it's the fact he was pederastic and pedophiliac molester. Irish publications have freely reported all, but the suppression goes on due to the embarrassment it would cause the monarchy.

Oh do bore off, R91. You highlight your ignorance with these whines about “socks”, “trolls” and the “far-right”.

Like a standard “progressive” (ha!) left social media posturer, you find it utterly incomprehensible that anyone could have a different point of view to you. Since you lack the knowledge or intelligence to construct a coherent argument, you content yourself with inane and illogical insults..

You are the living embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger effect & are best ignored.

R93, conservatives who rant against progressives shouldn't attack the intelligence of others.

I’m not a conservative, twat.

Labour voter now left homeless because of people like you.

LOL, it's conservatives who think helping the poor is "socialism"

[quote] progressives

R84 What does that word mean?

Does it include the new discretionary transvestites and SOGIES?

That's interesting r92. All of it, actually. I have read that the IRA had a much more personal reason to blow up Mountbatten than just independence, but I'm not sure about that.

[quote]R93: Oh do bore off, [R91]. You highlight your ignorance with these whines about “socks”, “trolls” and the “far-right”. Like a standard “progressive” (ha!) left social media posturer, you find it utterly incomprehensible that anyone could have a different point of view to you. Since you lack the knowledge or intelligence to construct a coherent argument, you content yourself with inane and illogical insults..

And your rant consists of nothing but... wait for it... inane and illogical insults.

There's that typical far-right talking point, characterizing the issue as merely 'a different point of view.'

But I must thank you; since you decided to come at me again, I am now able to view the missing post R52 in its entirety. :D

[quote]R52: “Poisoned Dragon”. A “bedding proxy”? What the fuck are you talking about? Unless he had an unfaithful wife, the chances that James did not father all those pregnancies is non-existent. Where did you get your historical “knowledge”, exactly? A porn film? Do you know how fanatically religious these people were? He thought that God had put him on the throne and that his seed was sacred. “Here, groom of the stool…you fuck her tonight. I’m having fun with Paolo” didn’t happen 🙄

Regardless of how "fanatically religious" these people were, that the king was homosexual is already considerably less than their ideal. There are things which are simply beyond the ability of the fanatically religious to control. That you think a bedding proxy would be impossible for a king is rather like the naive assumption of the religious that a marriage is proof positive that a man cannot be gay.

[quote]And continually using the word “one” doesn’t make you sound clever. Or unequivocally British. Just so you know.

Well, 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡'𝑠 weird. I don't know which is weirder - that you think I'm not speaking as I normally do, that it's unduly "clever," that you think the British have some corner on the expression "one", or that you think I somehow aspire to be British. SMH.

Who are you, Milo?

[quote]R95: I’m not a conservative, twat.

Mmm-hmm. This from the poster who insists at R52 that "David Starkey was right."

[quote]R95: Labour voter now left homeless because of people like you.

Sure, Jan.