Cherry Potts's Blog, page 20

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 29th January

Today’s birthday belongs to Robin Morgan, who is my first living invitee to the party. I did consider keeping it strictly historical, but she had and has such a big impact it seemed unreasonable to leave her out.

Robin is the editor of Sisterhood is Powerful, (1970) one of those books that change the world, kicked of the feminist movement in the US, and had a certain impact on me!

I’m not going to say a lot about Robin, you can read her work, but here are a smattering of quotes to get you thinking – she tells it like it is.

Pornography is the theory, and rape the practice.

There’s something contagious about demanding freedom.

Women are not inherently passive or peaceful.  We’re not inherently anything but human.

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 28th January

Here’s a woman not afraid to call a spade a bleeding shovel. Born in 1695, Anne Stainton went to Virginia (famous as a hunting ground for women in search of a husband) with her sister who was married to William Gooch, the colonial governor. She described herself as

Two and thirty  years of Age, Ugly and Poor

Her brother-in-law said she was

cocky …openly declares she will never marry, this I imagine is rather her pride than her earnest, she constantly adding “I did not come here for a husband. I might have been married in England.”

Nor did she marry, despite women being at a premium in the colonies.

I find myself thinking she might have started a pressure group called Spinsters’ Lib.

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 27th January

Another day another no show – no birthday and I’m late posting the birthday card too.  So standing in for 27th January is Mary Ann Talbot 1778-1803 also known as John Taylor, a famous cross dresser – so famous someone tried to impersonate her and was arrested for it!

Mary Ann was raped and forced to cross dress by her rapist so that they could travel freely, first in the navy and then the army. When the man was killed in battle Mary Ann was unable to  return to her previous life as she was stranded abroad, and instead continued in her role as John Taylor. However, she was in no hurry to get back into skirts once she was safe, and had a long career as a soldier and sailor before being wounded so severely it was impossible. She then resorted to a genteel form of begging and trying to get a pension out of the government, she ended up in and out of  prison for debt, and seemed to have a knack for getting into scrapes, often getting out of them again through the kindness of women who felt sympathy for her.

You can read her entire memoir here

Here are a couple of snippets to entertain you, she’s quite amusing.

The only circumstance of an unpleasant nature that occurred during my stay in America, arose from the strong partiality which the Captain’s niece conceived to my company, and which proceeded to such an extent, as to induce her to make me an offer of her hand in marriage.—I made several excuses, but could not divert her attention from what she proposed. Mrs. Field at length becoming acquainted with the circumstance, made great objection to my youth and inexperience of the world; but neither my excuses, nor Mrs. Field’s remonstrances had any weight, opposed to the young lady’s inclination, which she fondly cherished to the last hour of my residence at Rhode Island. She requested before Mrs. Field, that I would make her a present of my picture; for which purpose I sat for a miniature at New York, in the full uniform of an American officer—for this picture I paid eighteen dollars. The time of our departure for England being arrived, I took my leave, not without regret, of Mrs. Field, and family; but had scarcely proceeded two miles on the way to New York, before I was summoned back, being overtaken by a servant, who informed the Captain and myself, that we must return, as the young lady was in strong fits. We returned, and found her still in a fit, out of which, with great difficulty, we recovered her; and by making her a promise of a speedy return from England, she very reluctantly allowed me to depart.

 

While thus situated, I was enabled to enjoy many comforts which this charitable institution does not supply, from the benevolent attention of Mrs. Emma Raynes, a lady to whom I shall ever confess my obligations, as, immediately on my obtaining a discharge from the hospital, she provided me with a decent lodging in Tottenham Court Road, and supported me for a considerable time at her own expense, though I had no other claim to her protection than my necessitous condition. Previous to my finding a friend in this lady, it was judged by several in the hospital, from the low state I was reduced to, (my bones coming almost through the skin) that I should not survive the illness under which I laboured, from the pain of my wounded limb, and I procured some little necessaries from a subscription made by the young gentlemen, pupils, who attended the hospital; one of whom, named Scaife, in joke, I imagine, offered me half-a-crown a week while I lived, to have my body when dead.

 

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 26th January

Today’s birthday belongs to Elizabeth Percy (26 January 1667 – 24 November 1722) the last of Queen Anne’s intimate lady friends.

Elizabeth was one of the richest heiresses of her time and as such was the centre of many intrigues. She was married at 12 to Henry Cavendish, widowed at 13 and married again aged 14, in 1681, this time to Thomas Thynne. She left him almost immediately and went to the Hague. When her husband was killed by Count von Koningsmark shortly afterwards, she was implicated. Supremely unconcerned, she returned to England and married the Duke of Somerset. (The owner of Syon House where Anne stayed when she was exiled from court by her sister Mary.)

She became Groom of the Stole in Sarah Churchill’s place when Sarah finally, finally went too far and got sacked.

Jonathan Swift (supporter/manipulator of Abigail Masham, another of Anne’s lovers) was of the opinion that:

 [she] quickly won so far upon the affections of her majesty, that she had more personal credit than all the Queen’s servants put together.

Swift also risked his chances of promotion to jibe at Elizabeth in his Windsor Prophesy

And dear England, if aught I understand

Beware of Carrots* from Northumberland;

Carrots sewn Thynne a deep root may get

If so be they are in Somerset.

Their Comyngs mark thou, for I have been told

They assassine when young and poison when old.

Root out these Carrots, o thou whose name

Is backwards and forwards always the same[Anna]

And keep close to Thee always that name

Which backwards and forwards is almost the same [Masham]

And England, would’st thou be happy still

Bury those Carrots under a Hill.

[*Elizabeth Percy had red hair.]

Anne chose to ignore this shamefully biased advice just as she had ignored the remarkably similar advice against Abigail in the final verse of A New Ballad to the Tune of Fair Rosamund.

It would seem that Elizabeth fared no better with the Whigs at court, certainly Sarah for once agreed with her enemies saying of Elizabeth:

She was never quite so kind as after she had taken the resolution  to supplant me, for then she not only came to dinner and made meetings for play oftener than before, but I remember she took it into her head to kiss me at parting which was quite new.

Of course it could be that Elizabeth had now become part of the inner circle of lesbians around the queen, and so felt an additional kinship with her old friend Sarah, but one can hardly expect Sarah to interpret her actions this way given her own lesbophobia and her capacity for putting the worst construction on any imagined wrong; the older the friend the more likely she was to take offence.

Elizabeth had plenty of opportunity to supplant Abigail, who was frequently away from court tending to her children,  there is no evidence to suggest any personal rivalry between Abigail and Elizabeth, but little survives of the correspondence of either.

Anne died in 1714. She left no will, and consequently Elizabeth never received jewels which Anne had promised her; she was, however, chief mourner at the funeral.

Following Elizabeth’s death:

A great number of letters from Queen Anne to Lady Elizabeth Percy, 1st wife of Charles Duke of Somerset had been burnt by his grace’s order.

I love a burnt letter, when you see what Anne wrote to other people, without them being burnt, you wonder.

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 25th January

Well my dears, unless you don’t look at twitter etc at all, I suppose it might have escaped your notice that today’s birthday is celebrated on behalf of the magnificent Virginia Woolf.

I hope she needs no introduction? I’ve had her picture on my wall for about thirty years. If you don’t know who she is, go and read someone else’s blog, or even better go and read some of her books – you can come back when you are suitably impressed.

Virginia’s many talents, her feminism and her commonsense would be quite sufficient to get her an invitation, but happily we can add in an affair with Vita Sackville-West, (The inspiration for her novel Orlando); and one of the most delightful quotations known to woman:

My dear Vita, I have a perfectly romantic and no doubt untrue vision of you in my mind – stark naked, brown as a satyr and very beautiful. Don’t tell me this is all illusion. No doubt this bores you – but I cannot keep it to myself.

It might it be sacrilege to suggest that I enjoy Virginia’s essays, letters and diaries more than some of her novels, but there it is: I find the modernist novels a bit brittle, self-conscious and artificial, although despite that very readable – I’ve read The Waves and To the Light House several times – whereas her sense of humour and incisiveness are more apparent in her non-fiction – and I find the self she reveals in these works very appealing. So it is for herself rather than her fiction that Ms Woolf makes the guest list. I think she would be great fun to have around, providing she was feeling up to it.

Virginia is also the inspiration for two of my stories – Member of the Family (rather in passing – I wrote it after a trip to Rodmell -Virginia’s last home – with the Lesbian History Group. The house is not Rodmell, and Sarah is not Virginia, but all the modern-day characters are people I have passed on the stairs at places like Rodmell) and Neutral Territory, in which the house is an amalgamation of Rodmell and Small Hythe, and Greta isn’t Virginia, but Virginia could be Greta – there’s a nice post-modernist twist for you.

I don’t know why, but I have an urge to serve  Eccles cakes at that tea party.  Would Ms Woolf approve?

Forthcoming Publication – Earthshaker

A bit of good news this morning, my story Earthshaker has been accepted for Holdfast’s  Beasts edition due out in March (I think!)

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 24th January

Once more, no candidate for the 24th January, so here is Catalina de Erauso 1585 – 1650ish – cross-dresser, soldier, adventurer, aka Antonio de Arauso, Alonzo Dias, the nun lieutenant.

A word of warning: Catalina’s ‘memoirs’ weren’t published until the 19th Century. I’ve read two translations of what seem to be the same passage that are radically different; so it could all be a load of bosh – though no one ever seems to have queried it. Anyone who has read the original care to comment?

Born in the Basque region, Catalina escaped from her convent school aged 14 and immediately transformed herself into a boy, so convincing that even her brother didn’t recognise her.

I went out of the convent; I found myself in the street, without knowing where to go; that was no matter, all I wanted was liberty.

Taking a fancy to her brother’s mistress, however, led to a fist fight and Catalina being shipped off to South America as a soldier. She spent her time fighting as a soldier and getting herself into trouble, fighting numerous duels, until she admitted who she was to get herself out of yet another fix. She spent two years in a nunnery (without taking any vows) before getting back to Spain where she was awarded a military pension.

In this attempt I may find death; but remaining here I shall certainly find it. (Crossing the deserts of the Andes)

I think caution should be employed when considering whether to invite Catalina to tea – she would be likely to start a fight.

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 23rd January

Yes, I know, it’s a day late. I was singing all right? My and A’s first night at Orpheus & Eurydice, and a fun time we had, threatening the audience as furies. Hissed myself hoarse. Now in bed with a cold, but determined to throw it off by tomorrow lunchtime and the next performance.

Anyway, back to the birthday celebrations, and no one admitting to the 23rd January so back we got to the seventeenth century for another opinionated besom:

Hannah Woolley 1633-c.1675

Hannah started her working life at 14 running a school.moved on to be a governess, and ladies companion before eventually running a registry for domestic service in London in the 1670′s. She had a reasonable income and was able to support herself at 14. She bewailed the fate of gentlewomen fallen on hard times who hadn’t the knowledge to be anything but chamber maids or prostitutes. She wrote a scathing diatribe on the superficiality of women’s education in her recipe book The Queen-like Closet, and had a few hard things to say in The Gentlewoman’s Companion, alongside the recipes, alarming cure-alls and general household advice.

Now to the intent I may increase your wonder, I shall relate how I came to the knowledg of what I profess. When I was fourteen years old, I began to consider how I might improve my time to the best advantage, not knowing at that age any thing but what reason and fancy distated to me. Before I was Fifteen I was intrusted to keep a little School, and was the sole Mistress thereof. This course of life I continued till the age of Seventeen, when my extraordinary parts, appear’d more splendid in the eyes of a Noble Lady in this Kingdom, than really they deserv’d, who praising my works with the appellation of curious pieces of Art, was infinitely pleas’d therewith. But understanding withal, that I understood indifferently the smoth Italian, and could sing, dance and play on several sorts of Musical Instruments, she took me from my School, and greedily entertained me in her house as Governess of her only Daughter. Unto this honourable Person I am indebted for the basis, or ground-work of my Preserving and Cookery, by my observation of what she order’d to be done. By this Ladies means I came acquainted with the Court, with a deportment suitable thereunto.

A woman in this age is considered learned enough if she can distinguish her husband’s bed from that of another.

She described country gentlewomen as lacking “any agreeable discourse … like so many Mutes or Statues when they have happened into the company of the ingenious … [they] stared like so many distracted persons.”

I do daily find that in writing most women are to seek.  They many times spend their time learning a good hand; and their English and language is the one not easy to understand, the other weak and impertinent.  I meet with letters myself sometimes, that I could even tear them as I read them, they are so full of impertinency and so tedious.

She certainly seems short on patience. But she was prepared to shout about it and say that things could and should improve.

Your ambition, Gentlewomen, must mount more high, because your Convensation is most heavenly. It is immortality you aspire to, a lower orb cannot hold you; nothing else may confine you.

She also happily dished out advice on an appropriate letters including one to reject unwelcome affections and proposals of marriage ( I love this one, the cheek is magnificent.)

SIR,

IF it hath pleas’d Heaven you should love me, you cannot blame me though you suffer by it; should I accept the tenders of affection from all such amorour pretenders, I might be married to a whole Troop, and make my self a legal Prostitute. My inclinations lean not your way; wherefore give me leave to tell you, That you would do better to bestow your affections on some Lady who hath more need of a Servant than I have. And if you think your affection ought not to go unrewarded, receive the perswasions which I give you, never to trouble me more, lest you run a worse hazard by persevering in your intentions. Be advised by her who is.

Your faithful Monitor and humble Servant, etc.,

An early protest against domestic violence:

Blows are fitter for beasts than for rational creatures.

And an exhortation to choose who to marry:

Whatever you do, be not induced to marry one you have either abhorrency or loathing to.

Would we get on? She might want to rap me over the knuckles for inaccurate grammar, or consider me dull and impertinent. I hope not, I could promise to make one of her recipes – I quite like the sound of this one!

Quaking Pudding.

Slice the Crum of a Peny-manchet, and infuse it three or four hours in a pint of scalding hot Cream, covering it close, then break the bread with a spoon very small, and put to it eight Eggs (but four whites), and beat them together very well, then season it with Sugar, Rosewater and grated Nutmeg; if you think it too stiff, qualifie that fault with cold Cream, and beat them well together, then wet the bag or napkin, and flower it, put in the Pudding, and ty it hard, boil it half an hour, then dish it and put Butter to it, Rosewater and Sugar, and so serve it to the Table.

If she felt inclined we could set the world to rights and swap recipes for Quince Jelly over a glass or three of something mildly intoxicating, she seems to have a liking for Perry…

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 22nd January

Once more, dear friends, there is no one specific for whom to bake a cake. Therefore, I delve again into the seventeenth century in search of someone to celebrate:

Please give a warm welcome to Margaret Lucas Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle 1623 – 15 December 1673.

Mad Madge, as she was known to people emphatically not her friends, was the toast of the ‘blue stockings’ a group of intellectual ladies, much ridiculed, who nonetheless were well-educated for the time and kept each others’ spirits up. Margaret was a scientist, playwright and poet and wrote her autobiography because (amongst other things) she was concerned that as a woman and the wife of a Duke she would be forgotten when she died, as her husband if he still lived would undoubtedly marry again, so there would always be a “Duchess of Newcastle” and she thought she was worth more than that.

Virginia Woolf thought her plays were dire and her poetry dull, but like me, found Margaret’s irrepressible personality bubbles right through. (my words, not VW’s, obviously.)

Margaret confessed to being indifferent to her husband: It was not an amorous love, I never was infected therewith, it is a disease or a passion or both: I only knew by relation, not by experience.

Wrote of a lady ‘sanpareil’ who asked her father to allow her to remain celibate.

It is of no commendation to give them courage and confidence if I cannot give them wit.

Sociable letters

And if we be no citizens in the commonwealth, I know no reason we should be subjects to the commonwealth. (Ibid.)

I think a bad husband is far worse than no husband… and where one husband proves good, as loving and prudent, a thousand prove bad, as cross and spendthrifts…                               (Ibid.)

True it is, our sex make great complaints that men from their first creation usurped a supremacy to themselves, although we were made nature which tyrannical government they have kept ever. So that we could never come to be free, but rather more and more enslaved, using us either like children, fools or subjects, that is, to flatter and threaten us, to allure or force us to obey, and will not let us divide the world equally with them, as to govern and command, to direct and dispose as they do; which slavery has so dejected our spirits as we are become so stupid that beasts are but a degree below us and men use us a degree above beasts.

Preface to the reader, The Worlds Olio.

I have not read much history to inform me of the past ages; indeed I dare not examine the former times, for fear I should meet with such of my sex that have outdone all the glory I can aim at, or hope to attain; for I confess my ambition is restless and not ordinary; because it would have an extraordinary fame.

An epistle to my readers, natures pictures drawn by fancies pencil to the life 1656

A man walking did a lady spy;

to her he went, and when he came hard by,

fair lady, said he, why walk you alone?

Because, said she, my thoughts are then my own.

The effeminate description

I verily believe some censuring readers will scornfully say, why hath this lady writ her own life? Since none cares to know whose daughter she was or whose wife she is, or how she was bred, or what futures she had, or how she lived or what humour or disposition she was of.  I answer that it is true that ’tis to no purpose to the readers, but it is to the authoress, because I wrote it for my sake not theirs.

Women live like bats or owls, labour like beasts, and die like worms.

Nothing mad about Madge.  Seems like a sensible, together lass to me, and welcome to a posset and a pie. One of us? probably not, but fun to be around. I imagine these days she’d be a voluble and valuable blogger, and have her own popular science TV show!

There’s lots of information about M.L.C. on the web, she’s worth pursuing.

Opening tonight -Orpheus and Eurydice

Playing Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday this week. Platform Theatre, Central St Martins, Kings Cross N1C 4AA. Box Office

We’re singing in the chorus Thursday evening, and both performances Saturday and Sunday.