# Homosexual kings and royalty **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 15, 2009, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967 "2009-10-15T23:52:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/21 "2009-10-16T18:45:28Z")
I believe Queen Anne of Great Britain was rumored to have had a few female lovers after the death of her husband. ---
**Author:** ![JR\_Brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JR\_Brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JR_Brown)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/22 "2009-10-16T20:43:13Z")
Are you only interested in European royalty? Because I’m reading a history of medieval Japan, and it looks like every other shogun and half his lords were keeping a pet boy or ten along with the concubines. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/23 "2009-10-16T21:09:03Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Standard libel. Not worth a nickle. Or “Primary sources” as they are known in historical circles. The points about changes in attitudes toward sexuality are good ones. But in cases like James I its pretty much impossible to avoid the conclusion that he was at least bi-sexual. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/24 "2009-10-17T02:04:25Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Or “Primary sources” as they are known in historical circles. The points about changes in attitudes toward sexuality are good ones. But in cases like James I its pretty much impossible to avoid the conclusion that he was at least bi-sexual. Not at all. Note that “effeminate” is not the same as homosexual. There are some very butch males in SF who are openly gay as hell, and I know dudes who are effeminate who are straigh as an arrow. Jame had at least **seven kid** s. Ed II had at least **5.** There is just no evidence that either was gay or even bi-sexual. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/25 "2009-10-17T02:22:17Z")
See [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajiravudh). Excerpt: **“Throughout most of his reign there was a good deal of criticism of the king. Some argued that the real power in the state lay with the king’s favourites, the young men of his inner entourage for whom he had written plays and with whom he played games and organised clubs and societies. Some, like King Chulalongkorn before his death and Queen Saowapha, his mother, frowned on the king’s personal life and his almost total lack of interest in the opposite sex. It was commonly known, but never spoken of, that the King was in fact an ‘erratic homosexual’. He would in fact usually have been passed over had his father not introduced succession-by-legal-primogeniture.”** That’s probably as much as it’s safe for me to say. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/26 "2009-10-17T02:45:23Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Not at all. Note that “effeminate” is not the same as homosexual. There are some very butch males in SF who are openly gay as hell, and I know dudes who are effeminate who are straigh as an arrow. > > Jame had at least **seven kid** s. Ed II had at least **5.** > > There is just no evidence that either was gay or even bi-sexual. PLENTY of homosexuals have children. As for [Edward II](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_ii), there is QUITE a bit of evidence! Look up [Piers Gaveston](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_Gaveston). Keep in mind, it was a monarch’s duty to sire heirs. So the whole, “think of England” would probably apply here. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/27 "2009-10-17T04:31:19Z")
> [@JR\_Brown](#): > > Are you only interested in European royalty? Because I’m reading a history of medieval Japan, and it looks like every other shogun and half his lords were keeping a pet boy or ten along with the concubines. I get the impression it was not as big a deal in the East because they didn’t have a religion like Christianity which explicitly forbid homosexual acts. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/28 "2009-10-17T06:31:02Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > PLENTY of homosexuals have children. As for [Edward II](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_ii), there is QUITE a bit of evidence! Look up [Piers Gaveston](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_Gaveston). . Here’s a wiki quote back at you “\*Although the relationship that developed between the two young men was certainly very close, its exact nature is impossible to determine. The relationship may have had a sexual element, though the evidence for this is not conclusive. Both Edward and Gaveston married early in the reign. There were children from both marriages - Edward also had an illegitimate son, Adam. While some of the chroniclers’ remarks can be interpreted simply as homosexuality or bisexuality, too many of them are either much later in date or the product of hostility. It has also been plausibly argued that the two men may have entered into a bond of adoptive brotherhood.[\*5]” ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/29 "2009-10-17T07:22:49Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Not at all. Note that “effeminate” is not the same as homosexual. There are some very butch males in SF who are openly gay as hell, and I know dudes who are effeminate who are straigh as an arrow. > > Jame had at least **seven kid** s. Ed II had at least **5.** > > There is just no evidence that either was gay or even bi-sexual. Other than contemporary poems about him f\*cking the Duke of Buckingham, and his heart-felt protestations of love for other men that is. Actually I don’t think James I was considered particularly effeminate (he was widely admired North of the border as a hard drinking life-loving scot, unlike his son) ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/30 "2009-10-17T11:10:36Z")
Moving forward to the 20th century, [Prince George, Duke of Kent](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_George,_Duke_of_Kent#Personal_life) was a bit of a goer. Fourth in line to the throne when he died in 1942, the monarchy would certainly have taken on a different hue with George in the hot seat. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/31 "2009-10-17T15:41:01Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > I get the impression it was not as big a deal in the East because they didn’t have a religion like Christianity which explicitly forbid homosexual acts. Actually, in Japan, the situation was much more like **DrDeth** describes than in Europe, with the idea of female inferiority and such, and there’s a tendency in misogynistic warrior cultures, of which feudal Japan was one, for pederastic relationships to occur and be accepted. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/32 "2009-10-17T16:07:25Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Other than contemporary poems about him f\*cking the Duke of Buckingham, and his heart-felt protestations of love for other men that is. Again the poems were simply libel and in those days men felt no shame in professing their love for a close friend. Do you think feeling love for your brother is “gay”? Then why do you think feeling love for a close friend of the same sex is gay? Note that “Kings Favorites” were only favorites _of the King_. The other nobles and powerful dudes resented the fact that the “favorite” had such unlimited access. Of course they spread rumors and libel. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2009, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/33 "2009-10-17T17:39:01Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Again the poems were simply libel and in those days men felt no shame in professing their love for a close friend. Do you think feeling love for your brother is “gay”? Then why do you think feeling love for a close friend of the same sex is gay? But when you start referring to him as your “wife”, have a secret passage installed from his bedroom to yours, and your contemporaries openly refer to the relationship as a homosexual one, then yeah its a bit gay. > [@DrDeth](#): > > Note that “Kings Favorites” were only favorites _of the King_. The other nobles and powerful dudes resented the fact that the “favorite” had such unlimited access. Of course they spread rumors and libel. However in many cases the term is clearly used as euphemism for “gay lover”. ---
**Author:** ![Jerseyman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@Jerseyman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jerseyman)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/34 "2009-10-18T00:44:54Z")
You can probably add ‘mad’ King Ludwig II of Bavaria, designer of (among others) Schloss Neuschwanstein, better known as _Snow White’s Castle_ - yes folks, it really does exist. And contains a grotto specially constructed for performance of Richard Wagner’s (whom he was devoted to, even allowing for the flowery language of the time) more lyrical operas. Wagner’s career owes a lot to his patronage. Ludwig (aka Louis) might have had some kind of high-functioning autism, less ‘mad’ than in a fairytale world of his own. But basically I’m with Tamerlane (and Gore Vidal): ‘Homosexual’ is an ambiguous term that applies both in the sense of _acts_ regardless of heterosexual acts and in a contradictory sense implying rejection of the other sex in any romantic sense. Other times and places have just never looked on it that way and considering the variety of sexual and emotional ‘relationships’, legal or illegal, as part of the same thing or totally different, that occur, as well as personal development if nobody intervenes to stipulate “you did that, you cannot be heterosexual - ever” so creating a _self-fulfilling prophesy_ I think they were right and we are wrong. It is in some ways clearer with women. It is quite ridiculous to think of some ideal Victorian virgin terrified and disgusted with ‘doing her duty’ for her husband who would be appalled to think her immoral enough to enjoy it (though I bet many did!) whose emotional relationship is more that of benevolent pet owner, while both share their deepest emotions only with a non-sexual ‘closest friend’ of their own sex as truly ‘heterosexual’. At the same time, while Oscar Wilde was openly gay and convicted of sex with under-age boys his relationship with Constance has been remarked on as much more ‘modern’, equal and loving than was respectable for the time - in fact his equality with her was taken as evidence of his ‘unmanliness’, which can still be the case even now - think the gunshop scene in ‘Falling Down’ where a pretty toy for the anti-hero’s daughter gets the owner calling him a ‘faggot’, (and I suspect lies behind some peoples’ suspicion of men too involved with their children like women: they are still seen as ‘perverts’ but now that ‘gay’ is no longer ‘perversion’, ‘pedo’ has taken its place). We can trace it back to a religious ‘down’ on sexual pleasure in general mitigated by belief that God requires reproduction (as long as nobody enjoys it - then they can quote St. Paul out of context that actually enjoying it with one’s wife is ‘adultery’). Add to that rape-as-humiliation, general contempt for anything considered to be ‘feminine’ (as prevalent among many feminists as ‘male chauvinists’) and the result is a complete contradictory mish-mash, where ‘heterosexual’ might mean loathing the other sex so much that the only relationship with them can be exploitative or genuinely sadistic sex (not the agreements of BDSM), while ‘homosexual’ can mean preferring them in every way, but that in itself ‘desexing’ the person in their eyes. So what would a truly ‘homosexual’ king mean? Is it one who regarded women as barely human providers of sexual thrills he otherwise had no time for but gloried in his non-sexual deep emotional relationships with men? Is it one who was very close to women but did not always translate that into sexual terms if they did not want to? Is it one who had deep attachments to a very few individuals of either sex? I will agree (in part) with the Roman attitude that a person is either sensual or not, and when his soldiers mocked Julius Caesar as “Every woman’s husband”, that naturally implied he must also be “Every man’s wife”. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/35 "2009-10-18T01:33:31Z")
> [@Jerseyman](#): > > Ludwig (aka Louis) might have had some kind of high-functioning autism, less ‘mad’ than in a fairytale world of his own. It may have run in the family. His brother [Otto](http://nevermore.tripod.com/ludwig.html) was crazy enough to be kept locked up: > [@](#): > > He wrote to his beloved childhood governess " Otto did not take his boots off for eight weeks, he behaves like a mad man, makes terrible faces and barks like a dog. At times he says the most indecorous things; and then again he is quite normal for awhile. Gietl and Solbrig examined him and if he does not follow their advice, soon it will be forever too late." Otto’s mental health was rapidly deteriorating. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/36 "2009-10-18T02:13:03Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > But when you start referring to him as your “wife”, have a secret passage installed from his bedroom to yours, and your contemporaries openly refer to the relationship as a homosexual one, then yeah its a bit gay. > > However in many cases the term is clearly used as euphemism for “gay lover”. You’re reading into 13 century mores from a 20th century perspective. Clearly? Find me one undisputed case among English/British Royalty. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/37 "2009-10-18T02:43:02Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > You’re reading into 13 century mores from a 20th century perspective. You mean 17th century mores. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/38 "2009-10-18T03:35:28Z")
> [@Jerseyman](#): > > I will agree (in part) with the Roman attitude that a person is either sensual or not, and when his soldiers mocked Julius Caesar as “Every woman’s husband”, that naturally implied he must also be “Every man’s wife”. I’ve read that Julius Caesar’s supposed homosexuality was an Urban Legend. That the sole contemporary reference to that was made by a personal enemy who was probably just being snarky. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/39 "2009-10-18T03:58:00Z")
Most of the Julius Caesar homosexuality thing (and it wasn’t sole homosexuality…he was a notorious womanizer) comes from Suetonius, and refers to an incident when Caesar, as a young man, slept with King Nicomedes of Bithynia. From his “The Twelve Caesars”: > [@](#): > > The only stain on [Caesar’s] chastity was his having cohabited with Nicomedes; and that indeed stuck to him all the days of his life, and exposed him to much bitter raillery. I will not dwell on those well-known berses of Calvus Licinius: > > ``` > Whatever Bithynia and her lord possess'd > Her lord who Caesar in his lust caress'd > > ``` > > I pass over the speeches of Dolabella, and Curio, the father, in which the former calls him “the queen’s rival, and the inner side of the royal couch,” and the latter, “the brothel of Nicomedes, and the Bithynian stew.” I would likewise say nothing of the edicts of Bibulus, in which he proclaimed his colleague under the name of “the queen of Bithynia;” adding, that “he had formerly been in love with a king, but now coveted a kingdom.” At which time, as Marcus Brutus relates, one Octavius, a man of a crazy brain, and therefore the more free in his raillery, after he had in a crowded assembly asluted Pompey by the title of king, addressed Caesar by that of queen. Caius Memmius likewise upbraided him with serving the king at table, among the rest of his catamites, in the prsence of a large company, in which there were some merchants from Rome, the names of whom he mentions. But Cicero was not content with writing in some of his letters, that he was conducted by the royal attendants into the king’s bed-chamber, lay upon a bed of gold with a covering of purple, and that the youthful bloom of this scion of Venus had been tainted in Bithynia- but upon Caesar’s pleading the cause of Nysa, the daughter of Nicomedes before the senate, and recounting the king’s kindnesses to him, replied, “Pray, tell us no more of that; for it is well known what he gave you and you gave him.” To conclude, his soldiers in the Gallic triumph, amongst other verses, such as they jocularly sung on those occasions, following the general’s chariot, recided these, which since that time have become extremely common: > > The Gauls to Caesar yield, Caesar to Nicomede > Lo! Caesar triumphs for his glorious deed, > But Caesar’s conqueror gains no victor’s meed. I will add that I don’t like the translation of that soldier’s song. The translator went out of the way to make it rhyme. A more literal translation is, “Caesar subjugated Gaul, and Nicomedes subjugated Caesar. Look at Caesar triumph for subjugating Gaul. Nicomedes didn’t triumph for subjugating Caesar.” ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/40 "2009-10-18T04:28:34Z")
Well, **DrDeth** , his contemporaries certainly thought he was gay, and [killed him in a manner](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_II#Death) they thought appropriate: it’s widely believed that he was sodomized to death with a red hot poker. There’s plenty of debate on whether or not it’s true, but the facts are that is PLENTY of evidence he was, at the very least, bisexual. I have no idea why you are so quick to wave this away. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967.md?page=3)