Tennessean Charlotte McLeod, 28, was the 2nd US trans woman to obtain gender-affirming surgery in Denmark after Christine Jorgensen. I love this 1954 photo with her father. You clearly see the love and support in his eyes. He adored his daughter and celebrated her for who she was.
At first, Charlotte McLeod’s father didn’t support her medical transition. However, after her surgery, he explained, “now that it’s over, I’m ready to accept Charlotte as my daughter[…] It’s a little hard to get used to after all these years, but I will, you can bet on that.”
Unlike present newspapers, nearly all reporting on Charlotte was positive and celebratory. A 1954 issue of the Nashville Banner noted her beauty and that all her friends, neighbors, etc accepted her. How cool would it be if they still did this (with some improved language) today?
And today in the latest installment of our hit series There Is No Such Thing As Too Much Information: Mary II was into men who wore their natural hair long instead of opting for a then-fashionable wig, as she explains to Sophie von Hannover, discussing wigs, and a man who happened to own a particularly ridiculous one:
[…] Je seres bon valet de chambre et ne leurs voudroit oster aucune de leur propres cheveux, rien que ceux qui les tombe devant les yeux et les empeshe de voir.
I would be a good valet and would not like to take off any of their own hair other than that which falls to their eyes and prevents them from seeing.
Excerpt from a letter to Sophie von Hannover, dated 6 March 1693.
…Good thing she was married to this hairdresser’s nightmare, then:
…Whether she cut William’s hair has alas been lost to history.
Document signed by 12 Privy Councillors, a warrant addressed to Armigall Waad, clerk of the Council, authorising payments from “sych money of the Queenes Highneses as remayneth in your custody” as fees to specified messengers who have carried letters of state, presumably announcing the accession of Queen Jane, with the signatures of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury (“T. Cant.”); Thomas Goodrich, Bishop of Ely and Lord Chancellor (“T. Ely Canc”); William, Marquess of Winchester; the Earls of Bedford and Shrewsbury; Lords Vaux and Cobham; Sir Thomas Cheyne; Richard Cotton; Sir John Cheke; Sir John Mason; and Robert Bowes; 1 page, folio, integral address leaf, Tower of London, 17 July 1553, edge-mounted on board, neat repair to internal tear not affecting text
AN EXCEPTIONAL RARITY: A LETTER OF GOVERNMENT BUSINESS SIGNED BY COUNCILLORS DURING THE REIGN OF LADY JANE GREY “THE NINE DAY QUEEN”.
Jane Grey (1537-54) was the grand-daughter of Henry VIII’s younger sister Mary. When her cousin, the young Edward VI, died on 6 July 1553, the next in line to the throne was his sister Mary. However, members of the government led by the Duke of Northumberland were desperate to maintain their own power and prevent a Catholic from acceding to the throne. Northumberland conspired with Lady Jane’s parents (the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk) to marry the girl with Tudor blood to Northumberland’s own son, and then to proclaim Jane as Queen in place of Mary. Jane was proclaimed Queen on 10 July. Two days later came news that Mary and her allies in East Anglia were preparing to fight for her rights. Northumberland rode out against Mary on 14 July and soon discovered that there was little support for his flagrant disregard for the succession. Northumberland’s army soon melted away, and his support within government began to dissipate as soon as he left the capital. The Privy Council shifted allegiance and on 19 July proclaimed Mary as Queen. Jane was swiftly arrested, Northumberland soon surrendered, and on 3 August Mary rode in triumph into London.
There were just a few days when government business was conducted in the name of Queen Jane. Documents signed by Privy Councillors during this period are correspondingly rare (there are no auction records for any document signed by Jane as Queen). The Privy Council shifted allegiance with sufficient speed to ensure that its members suffered no immediate repercussion, but in the months that followed Archbishop Cranmer, whose signature is prominent in this document, was to fall victim to Mary’s bloody re-establishment of Catholicism.
To be auctioned via Sotheby’s on 4th of May 2023. Starting bid £7000
Hoël also showed himself to be an attentive and faithful husband: a widower at forty, after his wife had given him at least five children, he did not remarry; but he does not (apparently) take a concubine either, as J.-C. Cassard points out. Under the fine but still quite sharp pen of this author, whose seminal article helped to bring Hoël out of the shadows somewhat, this prince is nonetheless described as a dull character who suffered from events, in particular, from 1075-1076 and until 1077, the revolt of his barons, whose main military episodes were the sieges of Dol and Ancenis. This presentation, despite numerous very relevant notations, remains largely dependent on the historiography of the 19th century, in particular on the work of A. de La Borderie, particularly with regard to the pilgrimage to Rome made by Hoël, in order to “pray for the soul of his companion at the tomb of the apostles“: this ducal journey would thus have taken place in 1072 at the latest in 1073, while certain Cornouaillais lords took advantage of the absence of their duke to revolt against him; however, B.-A. Pocquet du Haut-Jussé pointed out as early as 1928 that we have “no details on the cause or the result of this displacement”, the date of which is not precisely known…
Character and convictions manifest themselves immediately after the death of Princess Havoise: doubtless this disappearance aroused in Hoël an “existential” reflection, which he would have wished to submit to the recently elected pope; but instead of retiring to a monastery, a temptation to which his son Alain Fergant would eventually succumb, Hoël chose to continue living in the world to help apply in Brittany the principles of the reform desired by the new pontiff.
-André-Yves Bourgès, Propagande Ducale, Rèforme Grégorienne et Renouveau Monastique
“Catherine II acted as a translator, essayist, writer and playwright, despite the fact that she was often criticized for her precarious Russian: after all, it was for her, an Austrian princess, a foreign language. She comes to power with the support of the army and through a coup d'état against her husband, killed a few days later, being proclaimed by various factions as "autocratic of all Russia”. Catherine II was extraordinary in international relations. Expanded Russia, won wars and maintained her empire among the great powers. In addition, as a consequence of the Europeanization of the country and Catherine’s active participation in Russian political and cultural life, the entire paradigm of roles traditionally reserved for women was changed: not only the Empress herself, but other women of the court stood out in the cultural sphere. In this way, Catherine Dachkova, in addition to leaving valuable memories, became the first woman in the world to occupy in St. Petersburg the post of director of the Academy of Sciences. Such a choice was given not only by the administrative ability of Dachkova, but also to assert about the intellectual capabilities of women. In 1764, the Smolny Institute for young ladies of the aristocracy opened in St. Petersburg - the first state educational institution in which women could participate, although only noble ones. When Catherine II dies, her son, Pavel, takes the throne, and in 1797 publishes a new law of succession, which again prohibits women to inherit the crown.“
The Tsarinas - The Women who Made Russia | Vladimir Fedorovski
In
1889, it was deemed appropriate to send Kaʻiulani (age 14) to England
for a “proper” education and remove her from the intrigues and unrest
between Kalākaua and his political opponents. She and her half-sister
Annie were sent to Northamptonshire and enrolled at Great Harrowden
Hall, a boarding school for young girls, under the elderly
schoolmistress Caroline Sharp.
In the collection of the Tsarskoye Selo State Museum Preserve there is a beautiful kokoshnik worn by the Grand Duchess Olga Nikolayevna. It was purchased from a private collection and restored.
The kokoshnik was originally commissioned to mark the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty in 1913. It was made in the Nicholas Starotorzhsky Monastery in Kostroma. The kokoshnik is made in a traditional style in the shape of a crown, covered with peach velvet. It is embroidered with silk and silver threads, decorated with semiprecious stones and mother of pearl.
Similar kokoshniks were made for the four Grand Duchesses. Two of them (belonging to Grand Duchesses Olga and Maria) had been sold abroad - presumably by the Soviets in the 1930s. The other two, owned by Grand Duchesses Tatiana and Anastasia are now part of the collection of the Pavlovsk State Museum Preserve. The kokoshnik of Grand Duchess Maria remains in a private collection in the United States. It is hoped that it will one day be returned to Russia.
I have found no photographs of the Grand Duchesses wearing these specific kokoshniks. The ones they have been wearing in the photos I have seen do not have that degree of decoration.
subject: Sisters Series
