Extraordinary Life: A Queer Action Hero - Part 1

In the 1920s and 1930s names like Scott of the Antarctic, Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh were familiar names because of their daring deeds and adventures. Another name which was equally well-known – Richard Halliburton (1900-1939) - but few recognise his name today.

Richard Halliburton

Two specific adventures dominate Richard Halliburton’s story. The first is his swimming the Panama Canal. The other is his mysterious disappearance along with his lover in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. So much adventure was packed into just a short life that I’ve split Richard’s story into two. Today I’ll look at his 1920s adventures. In July I’ll look at his 1930s adventures.

It was 100 years ago when Richard Halliburton got the travelling bug during a break in his studies at Princeton University. He joined a cargo freighter as a crewman which took him across to England. Richard toured around for a while before returning to Princeton.

In 1921 Richard began his life of travel in earnest. To support himself he wrote travel articles for magazines, and his father also gave him a modest monthly allowance. Quite often, though, Richard’s impulse buying made funds very low.

The first adventure was to climb the Matterhorn in Switzerland. He had never climbed before but he had a travelling companion and a local guide with him. His travels then took him to France, Spain and Gibraltar, where he was arrested for taking photographs of British installations. After using his charm on the authorities he was let off with a fine of £10, which he had to borrow. His travel articles weren’t selling so Richard probably realised that he should keep an eye on his spending.

Richard made his way via Egypt (spending a night at the top of the Great Pyramid) to India. The lure of the famous Taj Mahal was strong and after hiding in the shadows as the site was cleared of visitors for the night Richard took a midnight swim in the pools in front of the famous building.

More adventures followed as he travelled eastwards. In Macao he encountered pirates, and on his 23rd birthday he climbed Mount Fujiyama in Japan solo. He arrived back in the US in March 1923.

Despite having written dozens of articles only three had been published. However, he thought of another way to earn money by going on the lecture circuit and talking about his travels. This was a great success, so successful that he didn’t have time to turn his writings into a book as he hoped.

Even though Richard pushed his body to the limit many times he suffered from a rapid heartbeat and hyperthyroidism. He checked himself into Dr. Kellogg’s Sanatorium for a while (I hope he enjoyed his corn flakes!) and the rest gave him time to finish his first book, “The Royal Road to Romance”. Before it was published in 1925 Richard was off on his next adventure - to follow the voyages of Odysseus, the hero of the ancient Greek legend.

Richard’s Odyssey began on Mount Olympus. He reached the summit to be greeted with an almighty thunderstorm that trapped him and his two climbing companions there overnight. Perhaps Zeus himself was punishing them for ignoring their guides’ warnings not to go up until the next day. After visiting Delphi and climbing Mount Parnassus Richard headed to Athens where he sneaked into the Acropolis at night after it had closed. This was followed by running the original marathon route (the last 14 miles by taxi cab in order to get to his own birthday party at his hotel).

Crossing to the site of Troy in Turkey he continued on to the Hellespont. There Richard emulated the achievement of one of his heroes, Lord Byron, by swimming across it. After various other adventures Richard arrived at the volcanic island of Stromboli a few weeks later. He couldn’t resist clambering up to the mouth of the volcano itself. (There seems to be some recurring themes in his adventures – climbing up mountains and volcanos, sneaking into heritage sites, and diving into water!)

While retracing Ulysses’ voyages Richard inserted a detour to the top of yet another volcano, Vesuvius, before attempting to swim across the Strait of Messina. Strong currents forced him to finish it in the accompanying boat. Richard also visited Taormina in Sicily, where Robert Hawthorn Kitson had his villa. Although not mentioned by name in his book of his Odyssey, “The Glorious Adventure” (published May 1927), Richard mentions meeting “all the Englishmen”. And yes, Richard climbed to the top of Etna, where he almost succumbed to the sulphur fumes. But he needed to finish his Odyssey before the end of the year, and eventually reached Ithaca, home of Odysseus, in December 1926.

By now his first book was rapidly becoming a best-seller and this helped to make his 1927 lecture tour hugely successful – and profitable. In 1928 Richard accepted an offer from “Ladies Home Journal” to write articles on Latin America and he was off on a new set of adventures.

He began by tracing the steps of Cortes who conquered Mexico. Yet another volcano, Popocatapetl was ticked of his list of climbs and then came the ominously named Well of Death at Chichen-Itza. Richard dived down the well into the water 70 feet below. Climbing out he realised people might not believe he’d done it, so the next day he got a camera and did it again.

The most famous exploit on this adventure was his swimming the whole length of the Panama Canal. He wasn’t the first to do it, but he was the first to go through all the locks, which meant he had to pay the toll, the lowest in the canal’s history, of 36 cents.

Other exploits on this American adventure included being held prisoner on Devil’s Island, and spending two weeks living as Robinson Crusoe on Tobago. All the time he was writing his articles for “Ladies Home Journal”. They were so popular that the magazine paid him a bonus.

Back home and back on the lecture circuit Richard finished his book of his latest exploits as “New Worlds to Conquer” which was published in time for Christmas 1929.

As the 1930s began the Great Crash and Great Depression hit the family finances. A bright light for Richard was his meeting with Paul Mooney, who became his life partner.

In July I’ll continue Richard Halliburton’s story and his final mysterious adventure with his partner.

Game of Gay Thrones

Lists of lgbt people from history have always contained the names of kings and emperors – from the Chinese Emperor Ai to King Ludwig II of Bavaria. But thrones have always been challenged by usurpers, pretenders and the disinherited.

The gay King Edward II of England inherited his throne through at last 2 junior royal bloodlines. There were people with more senior bloodlines who could have been sovereign in his place if history had taken different turns. Even today over 2 dozen living people have more senior bloodline claims to the throne than Queen Elizabeth II, though all of them were barred from succession by various historic parliaments. Laws of succession are never set in stone. The UK last changed its succession laws in 2015.

People who have been suggested as monarchs have included gay or bisexual men. Some have also been nominated for the thrones of emerging nations. Below is a list of gay and bisexual men who have been nominated for, or have claimed thrones, in chronological order, with varying degrees of success.

1) Dmitriy I Ivanovich (d.1606), Tzar of Russia.
The most successful pretender was the man generally called The False Dmitriy I. Whether he was actually gay or bisexual is a matter of opinion. There’s no real evidence. Enemies of monarchs often use accusations such as sodomy or witchcraft to blacken the reputation of the king they want to get rid of. Dmitriy was accused of both. There are a couple of Russian nobles who are claimed as Dmitriy’s lovers, Prince Ivan Andreevich Khvorostinin (d.1623) and Petr Basmanov (d.1606). Dmitriy married a Polish noblewoman, probably to cement his already-established alliance with Poland, and it was with Polish help that he became tzar.

Dmitriy claimed to be the long-lost son and heir of Ivan the Terrible. That kind of claim works well if there’s an heir who had previously “disappeared”. When Tzar Boris Godunov heard about the pretender, Dmitriy fled to Poland where he gained the support of the Polish king. Together they attacked Russia. Boris died and Dmitriy was proclaimed tzar on 10th June 1605.

It wasn’t long before Dmitriy was challenged, especially because of his pre-western, pro-Catholic rule. Within a year Dmitriy experienced a revolt. A crowd of nobles and commoners stormed the Kremlin. Dmitriy sent Petr Basmanov to see what was happening and he was killed as soon as he left the chamber. Dmitriy jumped out the window to escape but was injured on landing and he was soon caught and killed also. Their corpses were stripped and dragged into Red Square where they remained for several days. Dmitriy’s body was then cremated and as the final insult, so the story goes, his ashes were shot out of cannon towards Poland.

2) Prince Heinrich von Hohenzollern (1726-1802), King of the USA.
We move on 181 years to the American Revolution. The circumstances surrounding the formation of the USA are well known, but what is not is the attempt to place a European prince on an American throne.

Prince Heinrich was the brother of King Friedrich II the Great of Prussia. Both were known to be partial to handsome young military officers. The only real connection Heinrich had with America was his friend Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, who had left Germany under a cloud of homosexual suspicion and had transformed an unorganised colonial militia into a national military force that kicked out a world power.

It took a few years for the US to decide on a form of government. In 1786 the Founding Fathers were beginning to consider a monarchy. Baron von Steuben was probably the first to suggest inviting Prince Heinrich to be the first King of the USA. There’s no documentary evidence which specifically mentions any offer but correspondence suggests some form of discussion on US constitutional affairs took place between the two. However, the idea of an American monarchy was soon dropped.

Prince Heinrich died childless in 1802 so it’s not really possible to say if he would have been succeeded by another family member, possibly even King Friedrich II himself, or another European prince. More likely, the present presidential solution would have been chosen.

3) Prince Henry Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York (1728-1807), King of Great Britain, Ireland and France.
Just 18 months after the supposed offer of the throne of the USA came a claim to the British, Irish and French thrones. Since 1701 all Catholics were barred from succession to the throne of Great Britain and those who supported the Catholic heirs of King James II, who had abdicated, became known as Jacobites.

Prince Henry Stuart (no.68 in my “Around the World in 80 Gays” series) was the grandson and last legitimate male line heir of King James II. He was born in exile in Rome was given the title Duke of York at birth. Technically, his father, The Old Pretender, had no authority to confer this title. In 1747 Pope Benedict XIV created the Duke of York a Cardinal-Deacon, and titular Archbishop of Corinth in 1758.

Cardinal York, as he wished to be known, tried to help get support for the failed Jacobite rising of 1745 led by his older brother Bonnie Prince Charlie. The Bonnie Prince died 1788 never achieving his dream of regaining his grandfather’s throne. Even though actual physical attempts to regain the British throne were abandoned the family’s claim never was. When the Bonnie Prince was seriously ill in 1784 Cardinal York issued a statement declaring his intention to carry on claiming the throne.

By 1788 Cardinal York seems to have stopped making any attempt to seize the British throne, though he signed his will “Henry R”, Henry the king. His many Jacobite supporters always referred to him as King Henry IX. On Cardinal York’s own death the Jacobite claim to the throne officially ended though an unofficial Jacobite line of succession still exists.

4) George Byron, 6th Baron Byron (1788-1824), King of Greece
This next claim is more hypothetical than actual. In 1823 the romantic poet Lord Byron, exiled from Britain after getting his sister pregnant, amongst other scandals, joined the independence struggle of the Greeks against the Turkish Ottoman Empire. The Greek rebels relied on financial support from European sympathisers and Byron was welcomed to their cause. This cause, however, didn’t last long for Byron. Just a few months after arriving in Greece he died of a fever.

There is no indication during his life-time that Byron, or any Greek rebel leader, had any thought of placing him on the throne of an independent Greece. In fact it is generally assumed by historians that the Greeks would have favoured a republic. There was no real discussion of a Greek monarchy until 1832.

In the style of the Romantic Movement to which Lord Byron belonged, the invitation to the Greek throne seems to have just been posthumous speculation to heighten his contribution to Greek independence.

5) Baron Franz Nopcsa (1877-1933), King of Albania.
Even in Lord Byron had no ambition to wear a crown a later baron certainly did. BaronFranz Nopcsa, a Transylvanian dinosaur hunter, had his eyes set on the throne of another nation which had gained independence from the Ottoman Empire, Albania.

The Baron’s knowledge of Albanian history and geography was second to none. He did, however, have an arrogance about him which led his to consider Albanians to be intellectually inferior and power hungry.

In 1913 the Congress of Trieste was convened to determine the government of Albania. Several foreign princes were invited to the Congress to discuss which was most suitable to be the King of Albania. Baron Nopcsa, merely a “volunteer” at the Congress on behalf of the Austro-Hungarian interests, systematically discredited each prospective monarch one by one, often by very dubious means. At that point the baron put himself forward to the Congress as an alternative candidate. His knowledge of Albanian history and culture may have been high but his knowledge of Albanian politics was non-existent.

Nopcsa’s candidacy needed the support of the Albanian Foreign Ministry but none was given. His attempts to discredit the original candidates were soon ignored and he too became the subject of smear campaigns. That’s international politics for you.

Baron Nopcsa left the Congress of Trieste in disgust before it ended, declaring that he was going to leave politics for good. In the end Prince Wilhelm von Weid was chosen as the first modern King of Albania in 1914.

Out of his Tree : The Blood of Dracula

Today is the 200^th anniversary of the dark and stormy night which saw the creation of two monstrous creations.

In the Villa Diodati on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland in 1816 a small group of friends wiled away the stormy night by telling ghost stories to scare each other. Among those friends were the polyamorous Lord Byron and Mary Shelley. Mary came up with the story of Frankenstein, and Byron came up with a vampire story.

It is Byron’s vampire story which I celebrate today. The vampire of European folklore is different to our modern image. The medieval vampire was more like the modern image of the flesh-eating zombie (real zombies have no need to eat, and don’t carry a contagious “zombie virus”). We owe our modern image of a vampire to that story Lord Byron told on that stormy night. In fact, we owe the sexual interpretation to vampire stories to the very real personality of Lord Byron himself. Traditional vampires had no sexual motives whatsoever. Even portrayals of contemporary vampires owe more to our Romantic image of Lord Byron.

Bram Stoker developed the legend by creating a suave, aristocratic vampire called Dracula. He “borrowed” the name from a real blood-thirsty (though not vampiric) noble called Vlad Dracula, the ruler of the province of Wallachia in Romania.

Believe it or not there are descendants of the Dracula family alive today, and they still use the name Dracula. One of these is a gay writer and actor called David Drake who researched his ancestry in search of proof of a link to Vlad Dracula. He then turned his search into a hit one-man show, with him taking on the roles of many colourful characters he met along the journey. He even got to play “Countess Dracula” herself.

David Drake had always wondered about his name. He was born David Drakula (his family have always used a “k”), and when his parents divorced when he was 7 his mother chose the informal surname Drake for her son (“Thank God I’m no longer a Drakula!” she once remarked). The Drakula family, not surprisingly, often brushed off any enquiry into their vampire connection. David, though, was intrigued, and in the late 1990s began to so some serious research into his family tree to discover if he really did have the blood of Dracula in his veins.

David knew a little about his immediate ancestry and nothing before the life of his great-grandfather, an immigrant from eastern Europe in 1907. The real Vlad Dracula lived over 500 years before that, so to close the gap David contacted many of the world’s leading authorities on Dracula to see if they could provide any clues to what happened in between.

Vlad was an important local ruler whose own bloodline had been traced back six generations to the ruler of Wallachia who may even have been a Tatar chieftain descended from Genghis Khan. The name Dracula means “son of the dragon”. Vlad’s father was invested as a Knight of the Order of the Dragon by his own cousin the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund.

Vlad’s family has been extensively researched though there are still some tantalising gaps in the junior lines.

Vlad’s own descendants can be traced down to the late 1600s and were spread around a wide area of south east Europe. David Drake has managed to trace his ancestry to the Drakulas of Serbia in 1611. One of those tantalising gaps in the records in the positive link between his ancestor and Vlad Dracula’s dynasty. Although there are several known illegitimate lines there could be others that have not been discovered. There are many known descendants of Vlad’s extended family, including the Duke of Cambridge (though his great-great-grandmother Queen Mary, a member of the previous royal Cambridges, who’s mother was a descendant of Vlad Dracula’s brother).

After several years of research and contact with Dracula scholars David decided to attend his first World Dracula Congress (yes, it does exist) in Transylvania in 2000. Among all the academics and experts David met was Countess Dracula herself! The actress Ingrid Pitt is most famous for portraying the blood-drinking Countess Elisabeth Bathori in the Hammer film “Countess Dracula”. They joined a tour of the sites associated with Vlad Dracula in Romania.

At the 2001 World Dracula Congress David Drake gave a speech about his search for his Dracula bloodline. It got a mixed response. One of the leading Dracula authorities believes there IS a link through the Hungarian branch of the family. Afterwards David decided to turn the whole search into a one-man show called “Son of Dracula”. It premiered in Baltimore, Maryland, in May 2002. After much editing and rewriting he performed it again in New York, San Francisco and Anchorage.

Perhaps David will never find that elusive missing link that will finally prove his bloodline to the real Vlad Dracula.

The Seven Deadly Gay Sins : Going Violet with Vanity

… or Purple with Pride.

We end our look at the 7 Deadly Gay Sins today with Vanity. In some sources vanity is replaced with Pride, but as Pride has acquired a new meaning within the lgbt community I didn’t want to use it for today’s Deadly Sin.

Christian tradition makes Vanity the oldest of all the sins. Lucifer’s vanity was the cause of him being expelled from Heaven with all the Fallen Angels.

I’m sure we all know someone in the lgbt community who is often referred to as “vain”, but the sin of Vanity is much more destructive than the desire to look good or praise your own achievements. Don’t confuse Vanity with arrogance or boasting. These belong to what the Medieval world regarded as the sing of Vainglory, one of the Deadly Sins that was dropped from the list a few centuries ago. Definitions have changed slightly over the centuries. An early definition of “vain” was “futile”, which survives in sayings such as “all his efforts were in vain”. The added meaning of “proud” and “narcissistic” came much more recently.

Which very neatly brings us on to Narcissus himself. This Greek man was so full of his own Vanity that he fell in love with his own reflection.

Vanity can really become deadly to others in the wrong hands. The gay serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer killed his many victims because he didn’t want them to leave him. This was a symptom of deadly Vanity, the desire to have your own feelings and needs dominate those of others who suffer as a consequence.

But let’s not dwell on those horrors and lighten things up. Vanity can be said to be the trait of the dandies, the impeccably dressed, sometimes over-dressed, men who attract attention. The most famous dandies in the lgbt community is Oscar Wilde and Lord Byron. Both dressed to impress.

Some of you may be recognise this famous portrait of Byron dressed in traditional Albanian costume. His usual style in both clothing and appearance led to a new word being invented to describe it – Byronic.

There’s one story I like about Byron from his days in Constantinople. He was invited to the Sultan’s palace and got dressed up in the most elaborate Turkish costume. He was ushered into the throne room, whereupon the sultan just uttered a greeting and Byron was quickly ushered out again. Naturally Byron assumed his fame as a renowned poet was going to get him a more meaningful audience. Needless to say his own pride was pricked and he stormed out of the palace in a suitably Byronic huff.

Another example of someone dressing to impress and getting a put-down as response comes with Douglas Byng (1893-1987). He was one of the UK’s leading drag and cabaret performers in the first half of the 20^th century. I’ve referred to him already in this 7 Deadly Sins series in relation to the sin of Greed.

Long before he became a performer he lived in Nottingham as a boy and young man. One of the traditional activities for a Sunday afternoon in Nottingham after morning church and Sunday lunch was for people to dress up in their finery and walk up and down Mansfield Road, the main road into Nottingham. This earned the name the Sunday Parade. One year young Douglas decided he’d join the Sunday Parade.

Having bathed himself in milk Douglas donned his best suit, a wig, a purple overcoat, tall cane, and tons of make-up and strolled up Mansfield Road like some Georgian dandy. He waved to imaginary friends, and his proud bubble burst when he was recognised by some neighbours and he sloped back home. “Was my face red!” he wrote in his autobiography, “Needless to say, it was, courtesy of Max Factor”.

One animal most associated with Pride rather than Vanity is the peacock. Earlier this year I mentioned the embarrassing situation of an American mistaking the rainbow-coloured peacock logo of NBC as the corporation’s support for same-sex marriage.

Another animal associated in the Medieval world with Vanity was the horse – I’m not sure why. They also gave Vanity the colour violet, and that means we can complete our 7 Deadly Rainbow Sins flag.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this 6-part series on the 7 Deadly Gay Sins. But wait! What about the 7^th, you’ll be wondering?

The last of the sins is Sloth – the sin of indifference, neglect, boredom and laziness. The Medieval world gave Sloth a colour as well – light blue. But as light blue isn’t on the Rainbow Pride flag I couldn’t be bothered to do any research into Sloth!

However, I hope to redeem myself next year when I look at the opposites of the 7 Deadly Sins and look at each of the 7 Heavenly Queer Virtues.

Champions of Justice

“Champions of Justice” is the title of my newest guided tour of lgbt Nottingham. I did the full tour for a paying client for the first time a week ago and it went very well. I usually try out parts of new tours on my established tours to see what works. I tried out the last part of the new tour in summer when I did my Robin Hood tour for a group of teenagers.

So, who are the Champions of Justice, and how do they fit in with Nottingham’s lgbt heritage? Here are the basics.

ROBIN HOOD – CHAMPION OF THE POOR AND OPPRESSED.
There’s no way you can talk about Champions of Justice in Nottingham and not mention Robin Hood. The first lgbt connection is my theory that the ballad which forms the basis of the legend and stories familiar to us today was written by Sir John Clanvowe who was married to Sir William Neville, Constable of Nottingham Castle. There’s no room to go into the details here, but if you put “Sir John Clanvowe” into the search box you can find out more.

Robin Hood was used by the lgbt community in Nottingham as the subject of a play by a gay street theatre group in the 1970s. Of course they put their own distinctive slant on the legend. Robin was transformed into Robina, Maid Marian was a man in drag, and someone else dressed up as the Major Oak. They put on their play outside the city Council House where a reception was being held for a Soviet trade delegation. When the delegates left the reception and saw the performance outside they were impressed that the council had arranged a special performance for them by the Robin Hood Society. A passing dog was also fooled, at least by the actor dressed as the Major Oak because it peed up her leg! The council wasn’t impressed and got the security guards to chase the actors away. Just how they explained that to the Soviets isn’t known!

LORD BYRON – CHAMPION OF THE UNEMPLOYED AND INDEPENDENCE FIGHTERS
203 years ago this week the British government sent hundreds of troops into Nottingham to quash the rioters known as the Luddites. These were hand-weavers who had been put out of work by newly invented weaving machines. They lost their jobs, their only income, and became destitute. Hundreds of them went around smashing the new machines and attacking their ex-employers’ homes. Parliament then passed an act which meant that anyone found guilty of rioting would be hanged. It didn’t stop the rioting.

A few weeks later the 24-year-old Lord Byron stood up in the House of Lords to make his maiden speech. He had spend that Christmas in the Nottingham area and undoubtedly knew about the riots. He said that it was wrong to hang the Luddites because they had no other choice but to smash the machines and reclaim their livelihoods. His words made him a hero in Nottingham.

By 1823 Byron was known throughout Europe because of his poetry (and his pansexual antics!). He was persuaded to join the Greek fight for independence from the Ottoman Empire. He was treated like a war-hero when he arrived in Greece, even though he hadn’t seen any military action. They were so in awe of him that he they virtually offered him the throne.

Unfortunately Byron died of a fever before he saw any action. But he was – and still is – treated as a national hero in Greece. His body arrived back in Nottingham for burial. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people came to see and pass by his coffin as it rested in a city centre inn overnight. Many were there to remember him as a great poet, but many more were there to remember him as a champion of the unemployed Luddites.

RAY GOSLING AND IKE COWEN – CHAMPIONS OF GAY RIGHTS
These two men were among the first members of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) founded in Manchester in 1969. Nottingham was one of the first branches formed and Ray and Ike were members. Ray was also one of the city’s youngest – and first openly gay - councillors in the 1960’s and was Vice-President of the CHE. He later became a very popular radio and tv broadcaster. Ike was a former RAF officer and a university law lecturer who wrote the CHE’s constitution.

In 1977 they persuaded the CHE to hold their annual conference in Nottingham. Several city hotels hosted discussions, workshops and events, but one event created the biggest stir in the CHE’s existence thus far. One discussion was on the subject of the psychological origins of paedophilia led by a Dutch doctor and MP who had been imprisoned in Holland for having sex with underage boys. The public and the media in 1977 were outraged. Several protest meetings were held outside the hotel, and the hotel (quite understandably regarding the violent anti-gay climate at the time) cancelled the events for fear of attacks on the hotel and its staff. The event was moved to another venue (from which the media was banned). In spite of this controversy the conference was deemed a huge success.

D. H. LAWRENCE – CHAMPION OF FREEDOM FROM CENSORSHIP (POSTHUMOUSLY)
Freedom from state censorship in the UK owes a lot to the trial in 1960 in which Penguin Books was prosecuted for obscenity for publishing local novelist Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”.

SIR WILLIAM NEVILLE AND SIR JOHN CLANVOWE – CHAMPIONS OF THE FREEDOM TO WORSHIP

This couple have appeared on this blog many times (again, enter their names in the search box). Both men were members of the Lollard Knights, a group of knights who supported the right to worship without interference or persecution from the Vatican (long before Henry VIII created the Church of England).

The Archbishop of Canterbury was very anti-Lollard and excommunicated all Lollard preachers. One carried on preaching and came to Nottingham in 1387, whereupon he was arrested. Sir William Neville, as Constable of Nottingham Castle at the time, suggested the preacher be held in the castle cells as they were more secure. The authorities agreed.

What no-one noticed after a few months was that the preacher had disappeared from the castle and was found in hiding under the protection of another Lollard Knight over a hundred miles away. It’s obvious that Sir William Neville’s Lollard sympathies had something to do with the escape. Fortunately, being one of the king’s closest courtiers, he wasn’t punished. Eventually, the Archbishop declared all Lollards heretics and had them burnt at the stake. Sir William and Sir John escaped this punishment also, both having died some years previously.

And those are just a few of Nottingham’s lgbt Champions of Justice.

Queer Achievement : Byron's Pride

[Achievement – the name given in heraldry to the full pictorial representation of a coat of arms.]

This weekend sees the climax of Manchester Pride. Wherever you go in the city you’ll see the city council’s coat of arms and derivatives of it – on buildings, on street signs, on litter bins. Here is the Manchester coat of arms with a few others that have incorporated parts of it.

The single design element that is common to them all is what we heraldists call “three bendlets enhanced” – three diagonal stripes slightly to one side of the shield.

Now, here’s the heraldic achievement of the poet Lord Byron, one of several that can be seen in Nottingham. Does the shield look familiar?

There is a family link between the pansexual Byron and the city of Manchester where the whole spectrum of the lgbt community is being celebrated this weekend.

Lord Byron’s earliest male-line ancestor is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as holder of several manors in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. These were the days before heraldry developed. Kings, barons and knights adopted any emblem they wanted, whether or not it had been used in their family or not. As generations passed these personal emblems were adopted by other members of the family. Some families adopted animals as emblems, like the lions of England inherited by “Queens” Edward II and James I.

In some cases the emblems originated in the construction elements of a shield. Central bosses and studs were painted and they became family emblems as discs. The three red discs of the Courtenay family (of which the 3^rd Earl of Devon, young lover of William Beckford, was the family head) may have begun this way. Metal bars fixed across the shield to strengthen it because the bars and stripes in heraldry, and this is probably the ultimate origin of Lord Byron’s shield. Interestingly, the position of the bars, centred to one side of the shield, is the area most often hit during battle and jousts.

Another common practice in the early days of heraldry was to adapt the coat of arms of a related or connected family. That is how Lord Byron’s arms came into being.

In the 12^th century Lord Byron’s ancestors married heiresses from Lancashire in the Manchester area and they established a second manorial base there. One family of local importance they married into were the Grelleys, lords of the manor of Manchester. The Grelleys had a coat of arms of three gold stripes on a red shield, the same one still used as part of the city arms of Manchester today.

The Byrons inherited the manor of Manchester from the Grelleys. To commemorate this descent they adopted the three stripes from the Grelley shield and turned them red. And when Sir John Byron, MP for Nottingham, was created a peer in 1643 he chose his full title to be Baron Byron of Rochdale in the County Palatine of Lancaster (having bought the manor of Rochdale in 1638 from “Queen” James I to add to his Manchester estates).

A coat of arms used by the old Failsworth Urban District Council, situated in Manchester, shows this inheritance in visual form perfectly. I’ve shown the Failsworth arms below. It shows the stripes of the Grelleys and Byrons joined together as is passing the manor of Manchester from one family to the other.

As people wander around Manchester this weekend during the city’s Pride celebrations, the spirit of Lord Byron will no doubt be there with them.

Out Of Their Trees : Magna Carta Bloodlines

Today is the official celebration for the 800^th anniversary of the Magna Carta.

The Magna Carta has become a symbol of rights and freedoms in society and even though it was only legal for 9 weeks back in 1215 its legacy has influenced later declarations of human rights that are in existence today. What I’d like to show today is that many lgbt activists, whether they campaign for lgbt rights, women’s rights, or human rights in general, have Magna Carta “in their blood”.

Hundreds of thousands of lgbt people descend from either King John or one (or more) of the 25 barons who acted as sureties, a group regarded among American genealogists as being as significant as signatories of the Declaration of Independence or Revolutionary soldiers. Although I wouldn’t regard myself as an activist I can claim descent from King John and 15 of the 17 surety barons who left descendants. There are no living descendants of the other 8 barons.

Statistically speaking it’s impossible for anyone of English descent NOT to have at least one Magna Carta ancestor. You’ll be surprised by the famous activists, revolutionaries, freedom fighters and campaigners who do (for example, most of the leaders of the American War of Independence, leading members in the English Civil War, and several leaders of the French Revolution).

I’ve chosen a representative group of lgbt activists and campaigners and have shown their Magna Carta ancestors on the chart below. Going into detail would take up a huge amount of space so I’ve written only a short description of the individual’s campaigning career and indicated their Magna Carta ancestors using the numbers given.

There’s one oddity which the chart reveals. Of King John and the 17 barons who have many thousands of living descendants walking around today, not one of the selected lgbt activists is descended from one of those barons - Sir Geoffrey de Say. Neither am I, but lots of people are. Its just one of those things.

1) Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) - Social reformer and campaigner for women’s rights. She was an anti-slavery activist in the 1850s before concentrating of women’s suffrage, being President of the National Women’s Suffrage Association 1892-1900. The 10^th Amendment to the US Constitution giving women the vote is known as the Anthony Amendment.

2) George Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824) - Before finding fame as a Romantic poet Byron sat in the House of Lords. His maiden speech was in defence of the Luddites of Nottingham, weavers who were smashing the new machines that were taking their work and livelihood away. Parliament decreed that Luddites be executed, and Byron defended their right to live and work. At the end of his life Byron fought with the Greeks in their fight for independence from the Ottoman Empire.

3) Hon. Sir Ewan Forbes, 11^th Baronet (1912-1991) - Born female and the youngest child of a Scottish baronet, Sir Ewan successfully fought to have his birth certificate changed by law after his transition. He then succeeded in a court case over the family title against a male cousin who didn’t recognise Sir Ewan’s gender.

4) Eva Gore-Booth (1870-1926) - Eva fought against her privileged background and was also an active suffragette, founding a branch of the Irish Women’s Suffrage Association in Sligo. With her lover Esther Roper she became co-secretary of the Women’s Textile and Other Workers Representation Committee. Eva was also an Irish nationalist and campaigned for the release of nationalists who were imprisoned as traitors, one of whom was her sister Constance, Countess Markiewicz, the first women elected to the UK parliament.

5) Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) - One of the Founding Fathers of the USA, a veteran of the War of Independence, and co-founder of the Federalist Party.

6) Harry Hay (1912-2002) - A leading figure in gay rights in the USA. He co-founded the Mattachine Society in 1951, one of the most influential pre-Stonewall organisations which lobbied the US government for equal rights. Later he went on to be elected Chair of the Southern California Gay Liberation Front, and co-founded the Radical Faeries.

7) Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) - First Lady of America, humanitarian and diplomat. In 1948 Eleanor was chosen to chair the committee which drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

8) Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) - Having fought against her family to pursue what they regarded as an unfeminine career as a composer Ethel used her talents in the suffragette movement by composer their anthem “The March of the Women”. Her own campaigning for votes for women earned her a prison sentence.

9) John Addington Symonds (1840-1893) - Although he never came out as a homosexual in his lifetime Symonds’ writings displayed more than a hint to his sexuality. His defence of the homosexual lifestyle was daring for his time. In his writings he advocated the decriminalisation of homosexual acts.

The Twelve Noels of Christmas : 3

The 7^th Noel – NOEL CRUZ-PACHECO

One difference I’ve noticed between UK universities and USA universities is the level of openness in listing lgbt students and staff. In the UK there are very few (if any) of these lists, whereas in the USA most lgbt groups in the major universities publish lists of out members. One of the biggest lists belongs to the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

Noel Cruz-Pacheco has been at UCSF since 2009. A graduate of the Pontifical Catholic University in Puerto Rico Noel arrived at UCSF as a staff research associate working in the Department of Cell and Tissue Biology. Most of his work there involved studying the genetic formation of a type of yeast fungus called Candida albicans. This organism lives within the human body, particularly in the intestines and mouth, and can cause several serious illnesses.

In 2012 Noel moved to another laboratory at USCF where his work involved studying the interaction between nerve cells and skin layers and how this creates new tissue and cell regeneration when the skin is damaged.

The 8^th Noel – NOEL BAGGETT (b.1941)

One of my New Year resolutions every year is to get back into shape and into sport somehow. I don’t really have the conviction though and find it more difficult to get motivated than I did ten years ago. Which is why I’m always inspired to keep trying by hearing about people like Noel Baggett.

At the age of 63 Noel took up wrestling. He had done some at school and college but he didn’t continue into adult life. Noel always kept himself fit, however, by running.

In 2006 the Gay Games were held in Chicago. He competed in two sports – running and wrestling. He won a gold medal in his age group in the 5 km road race. Being relatively new to competitive wrestling Noel was just happy to compete, having only took up the sport less than two years previously. His first competitive bouts pre-Gay Games, however, didn’t bode well as he hadn’t acquired the flexibility and balance he needed. At the Gay Games he had trained hard enough to win himself a silver medal in his weight category.

Eight years on, and 73 years old, Noel is still training. He still does long-distance running, and has a personal trainer at the gym. He also still competes. His most recent event was the California Senior Games earlier this year where he broke his personal best results.

I only hope I can be in that good a shape when I’m that age!

The 9th Noel – GEORGE NOEL BYRON, Lord Byron (1788-1824)

You may not have realised that Lord Byron was called Noel. That’s probably because its not one he was born with, he acquired it in an attempt to escape his scandalous past.

Byron was bisexual – polysexual even. His sexual reputation became the centre of gossip after 1813 when it became common knowledge that he had slept with his half-sister, a married woman, and got her pregnant. The aristocracy usually turned a blind eye to homosexuality, but incest and adultery were definitely taboo.

Byron began flirting with another aristocratic lady but found that these affairs were affecting his poetry – both in his writing of them and in their popularity. Some of the poems he wrote at around this time were not up to his usual standard and his books were not selling as much as they had before.

In order to produce an image which reassured his public (and even himself) that he wasn’t the lecherous degenerate his public were beginning to think of him as being he decided to get married. He couldn’t have chosen a worse wife.

Anna Isabella Milbanke Noel was a dull woman by all accounts. She lacked the imaginative intellect of Byron. She was the only child of Sir Ralph Milbanke Noel and was the heir to both him and the barony of Wentworth. They married on 2^nd January 1815. Part of the marriage contract included the condition that Lord Byron must adopt the surname Noel in front of his own. And so George Byron became George Noel Byron.

The newly-weds had one child, born in December 1815. She was the celebrated Ada, later to become the Countess of Lovelace, and the first “computer” who worked with Charles Babbage on the “difference engine” – the forerunner of the devices which now carry the name of “computer”.

Ada was barely a month old before her mother left Byron. The scandal of his earlier affairs were not dying down, and eventually Byron and his wife obtained a legal separation, though they were never officially divorced.

Byron thought it best to leave England and spent the rest of his life on the Continent. His estranged with Anna Isabella, inherited the title of Baroness Wentworth and died in 1860. She passed this title and the Noel name to her daughter Ada, who passed them down to her descendants.

In the final three Noels next Sunday we’ll meet one who named himself after the first.