# 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:** 19\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/61 "2013-06-18T21:00:42Z")
Many royals had “favorites” of the same gender, but it often isn’t clear whether their relations were sexual or not. An example here is Queen Anne. For many years, her favorite was Sarah Churchill - and they were very close. She eventually dumped Sarah for Sarah’s younger cousin, leading to allegations that she was ‘trading in’ lesbian lovers - apparently, some allegations from Sarah! Both women were of course married (to men) and had children. I don’t think there has been any evidence, other than accusations, that Anne actually had sex with her favorites. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/62 "2013-06-18T21:07:18Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > I do wonder if at times modern people have taken slurs too seriously as evidence. Not just modern people. Slurs have been around as long as we’ve had commentators and it seems likely for much the same reasons. People love scandal and gossip ( probably the nature of being a social animal ) and are prone to believing all sorts of crap. Like I said when this thread was fresher, you have to take such things with a grain of salt, _always_. That said reasonable suppositions can be made in some cases. For example as noted above William Rufus was never directly accused, but direct accusation can also get you into trouble. And we have decent reason to believe that casual male-male sex was not at all uncommon among Norman _juvenes_ ( unmarried young noble bachelors ) who tended to congregate in age cohort-based cliques and marry late, as the church railed against it often enough. We know that William’s court had a strong reputation for licentiousness and hard partying, including charges of sodomy. We know that William left no known bastards ( his younger brother left ~35 bastards ) and died at 40, unmarried and without heirs. In this case there is enough smoke to make a passable argument there was fire. Airtight? Nope. But a reasonable supposition. ---
**Author:** ![eltro102](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@eltro102](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eltro102)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/63 "2013-06-18T21:49:36Z")
what about renly baratheon? ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/64 "2013-06-18T22:03:47Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > Well, if we are going to get into cultural models of sexuality, then homosexuality as we currently conceive of it didn’t exist at all prior to this century, and neither did for the most part, our idea of heterosexuality. I think for the purposes of this question we are just looking for same sex sexual behavior. Which means my second sentence, that attraction to men does not automatically equate to attraction to boys, or vice versa, stands. Human behavior is human behavior, whatever you chose to call it. It’s not like that fact suddenly appeared in the 20th c., but had never been there before. ---
**Author:** ![Mississippienne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/65 "2013-06-19T05:29:16Z")
The Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich IV (best known for his conflicts with the pope and Matilda of Tuscany) was sort of the Caligula of 11th century Germany. Tall, handsome, and “lynx-eyed”, Heinrich had a famously turbulent personality, and was described by contemporary chronicler Ekkehard as “arch-pirate and heresiarch and apostate and persecutor of souls.” Its worth noting that tales of his sexual deviancy were current throughout his reign, before and during his conflict with the papacy. He kept so many concubines that his subjects were scandalized (in a time period when monarchs were expected to have extramarital lovers). When he tried to divorce his first wife, Bertha of Savoy, his antics so enraged her that Bertha herself beat him with a chair-leg! (this according to the chronicler Bruno). His own second wife, Evpraksia Vsevolodovna of Kiev, accused him of forcing her to participate in orgies and performing black masses upon her naked body, and both she and her stepson, Konrad (Heinrich’s son by his first wife) claimed that Heinrich had offered to “share” Evpraksia with Konrad (_Annales sancti Disibodi_). Another contemporary chronicler, Hugh de Flavigny, names Heinrich’s vices:\* innumerabilis malis, homicidiis, periuriis, adulteriis, fornicationibus\*, none of which I think I have to translate for you. Relevent to the discussion at hand, are the charges levelled at Heinrich by Manegold of Lautenbach, which included incest (allegedly with Heinrich’s sister, Adelaide, abbess of Gandersheim), adultery, murder, sacrilege, and “the uncleanness of sodomitical filth” (_sodomitica colluvionis immunditia_). In context, its pretty obvious Manegold meant homosexual acts. Wido of Ferrara also hinted at the same, but admits that he doesn’t know if “vice” was involved in Heinrich’s relations with “young boys and mature men” (_Gaudebat multum consortio puerorum et maxime venustorum_). (tangent: Heinrich IV’s sister, Judith, was notorious in her own right as the troublemaking queen of first Salamon of Hungary and then Wladyslaw I of Poland) ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/66 "2013-06-19T07:33:45Z")
What about Catherine De Medici. I read that she was a bit too touchy feely with her ladies in waiting, specifically she liked to spank them, which sounds… ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/67 "2013-06-19T08:24:38Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > In four years, no one’s mentioned the Bourbon Duke of Cadiz, Francisco de Asis ? He was only a King-Consort, but both his grandfathers were Kings, his wife was a Queen-Regnant, and his alleged son was Alfonso XII King of Spain. > > That Francisco was an effeminate homosexual who did not please his wife is very widely known and the present King of Spain, H.M. Juan Carlos, probably does not have the Bourbon Y-chromosome. (This wouldn’t affect his legal right to rule: Spain was inherited through Francisco’s wife, and children of married women always default to “legitimate.”) And a bastard child of an unmarried regnant queen would have been able to inherit, anyway. The woman whose name apparently you can’t recall is Elizabeth II, who famously complained that on their wedding night her husband was wearing more lace than she. ---
**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:** [June 20, 2013, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/68 "2013-06-20T01:34:41Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > What about Catherine De Medici. I read that she was a bit too touchy feely with her ladies in waiting, specifically she liked to spank them, which sounds… British? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/69 "2013-06-20T02:16:05Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Please don’t give the Republicans any new ideas for pseudo-scandals. **Moderator Note** Please don’t take political jabs in General Questions. No warning issued, but don’t do this again. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**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:** [June 20, 2013, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/70 "2013-06-20T02:28:09Z")
My bad. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/71 "2013-06-20T05:57:54Z")
> [@Knorf](#): > > Which means my second sentence, that attraction to men does not automatically equate to attraction to boys, or vice versa, stands. > > Human behavior is human behavior, whatever you chose to call it. It’s not like that fact suddenly appeared in the 20th c., but had never been there before. Yes that stands, but both count as same sex sexual activity. And there is also a difference between pedophilia (prepubescent) and 11–14 year old pubescents (Hebephilia) and mid-to-late adolescents 15–19 (Ephebophilia), who in many periods were considered fully adult. Any way, no attraction assumes any other attraction. You can “be gay” without being attracted to all or even most men. What’s your point? I’m not sure what your point is about human behavior. Our conceptions about adulthood, models of sexuality, the institution of marriage, intimate relationships, have all had great variation throughout the years. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/72 "2013-06-20T06:25:36Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > I’m not sure what your point is about human behavior. Our conceptions about adulthood, models of sexuality, the institution of marriage, intimate relationships, have all had great variation throughout the years. The OP asked for “homosexual kings and royalty.” Sexual attraction to boys does not equate to homosexuality. That was my point. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/73 "2013-06-20T20:04:11Z")
> [@eltro102](#): > > what about renly baratheon? Heh. Much more explicit in the HBO series than the books. Frederick the Great in his princely youth had a very close friend, possibly a lover, with whom he tried to run away from home. Frederick was quite broken up when the friend was executed by his father, an ogre of a king, who forced Frederick to watch the beheading: [Hans Hermann von Katte - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Hermann_von_Katte) ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/74 "2013-06-20T20:35:25Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Heh. Much more explicit in the HBO series than the books. > > Frederick the Great in his princely youth had a very close friend, possibly a lover, with whom he tried to run away from home. Frederick was quite broken up when the friend was executed by his father, an ogre of a king, who forced Frederick to watch the beheading: [Hans Hermann von Katte - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Hermann_von_Katte) His dad was the one who had a thing for giant soldiers, I believe. He ‘collected’ men who were unusually tall - by hook and by crook (in some cases, kidnapping) and formed them into an “army”. When he was sad, he’d have them march through his bedroom, which cheered him up. 😃 > **[Potsdam Giants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potsdam_Giants)** > > The Potsdam Giants was the name given to Prussian infantry regiment No 6. The regiment was composed of taller-than-average soldiers, and was founded in 1675. It was eventually dissolved in 1806, after the Prussians were defeated by Napoleon. Throughout the reign of the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia (1688–1740), the unit was known as the "Potsdamer Riesengarde" ("giant guard of Potsdam") in German, but the Prussian population quickly nicknamed them the Lange Kerls ("long fellows"). > ... > [@](#): > > “The most beautiful girl or woman in the world would be a matter of indifference to me, but tall soldiers–they are my weakness.” Mere homosexuality - pfft. This guy’s fantasy life was far more involved. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2013, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/75 "2013-06-21T06:51:03Z")
> [@Knorf](#): > > The OP asked for “homosexual kings and royalty.” Sexual attraction to boys does not equate to homosexuality. That was my point. I think you are getting stuck on overly simplified modern notions of sexuality that did not exist historically. Once you go down the path of saying that some particular form of same sex behavior does not count as “homosexuality” then you must pretty much discount all historical same sex behavior as homosexuality since nearly all examples come from a very different mindset and cultural models of how sexuality and relationships work and what they mean. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2013, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/76 "2013-06-21T07:17:58Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > I think you are getting stuck on overly simplified modern notions of sexuality that did not exist historically. Just because in older times there were less nuanced understandings of sexuality doesn’t mean modern concepts are wrong. Human behavior is human behavior. Pedophilia is not homosexuality, then or now. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2013, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/77 "2013-06-21T07:36:43Z")
I mean, honestly, why should I care what sexual understanding in the past was? People in the past used to believe in things like humors/temperaments and bloodletting and such, which is rubbish. Proven false. The fact is, gay men or women are attracted to adults of the same sex, by definition and modern understanding of human behavior. Pedophiles are attracted to children. The social acceptance of either has waxed and waned in different societies, but it is a fact that people who are homosexual then and now are _not_ predisposed to being attracted to children, and pedophiles then and now are _not_ predisposed to being attracted to adults of the same gender. This is true now, and it was true in the past. I will agree that this fact of human nature is much more well understood in modern times than in the past. But the OP did not specify homosexual as according to outdated thinking. Bottom line: people in ancient times or modern times who were pedophiles were not necessarily homosexual. Yes, people in the past may have thought of this differently. So what? Any equation that assumes homosexuality necessarily includes pedophilia, or vice versa, is simply incorrect. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2013, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/78 "2013-06-21T19:19:18Z")
I feel like we’ve sidelined this thread but if anyone wants to continue this over into Great Debates let me know. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967/79 "2013-07-14T19:07:10Z")
I have heard it said that Babur, of Mughal Empire founding fame was quite fond of the same gender. Well he was certainly King of Kabul and Kabul in his era (which is shocking to modern people) was a hot bed of licentiuouness. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexual-kings-and-royalty/513967.md?page=3)