Out Of His Tree : A Minor Royal With Major Roots

The UK is in Royal Wedding fever this week with the wedding of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle at the weekend. The current “official” royal family is quite small compared to 30 years ago. Those who don’t undertake official duties, or are more distant descendants of British monarchs, are often referred to as “minor royals”. Today’s subject, Lord Ivar Mountbatten, is one of them, and the closest openly gay minor royal related to Prince Harry. Several historical royal weddings have influenced Ivar’s ancestry.

Lord Ivar and Prince Harry share an origin in that their families came originally from Germany. They changed their German names to more English ones in 1917 during World War I. The Royal Family’s name of Saxe-Coburg changed to Windsor, and the Princes of Battenburg changed theirs to Mountbatten. At the same time they renounced with German titles. If it wasn’t for the war Lord Ivar would be Prince Ivar of Battenburg. Many non-titled families of non-British origin also changed their names during the war.

Ivar’s great-grandfather was Prince Louis of Battenburg. He and his brother married into the British royal family and became British citizens. Prince Louis became Louis Mountbatten from 1917 and was created Marquess of Milford Haven. His elder daughter Alice had married a Danish prince so remained a princess. Her son is Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. On renouncing his Danish titles to become a British commoner just before marrying the present Queen Philip’s surname became Oldenburg-Schleswig-Holstein – not very English-sounding for someone marrying the future queen just two years after World War II. So he adopted his mother’s family name. That’s why Prince Harry is also a Mountbatten.

In the Battenburg roots we find that their princely title comes through another royal marriage. In 1851 Prince Alexander von Hessen married Countess Julia von Hauke. As a German prince Alexander was expected to marry a woman of equal rank, which Julia wasn’t. This type of marriage is called “morganatic” and happened quite a lot, and the wives and children weren’t allowed to call themselves prince or princess.

Alexander’s brother, the Grand Duke of Hesse, gave Julia the title of Countess of Battenburg for herself and her children, and in 1858 granted them the titles of Princess or Prince. Battenburg was an old Hesse family castle and, in a way, foretells the British Royal Family’s adoption of the name of Windsor in 1917.

Lord Ivar may not even be the first lgbt Mountbatten. One of Julia’s grandchildren became Alexander Mountbatten, Marquess of Carisbrooke (1886-1960). He was Queen Victoria’s favourite grandchild. Several gay high society luminaries, such as Cecil Beaton who knew him personally, acknowledge Alexander as being gay in their diaries. Carisbrooke’s only child, Lady Iris Mountbatten (1920-1982), married an American, Michael Bryan, and the Mountbatten bloodline (but not the name) exists in the USA today in their son Robyn and grandchildren.

Lord Ivar Mountbatten’s Hesse ancestry can be traced in an unbroken male line all the way back to Reginar, Duke of Lorraine (d.915). Not even Prince Harry can trace his complete male line back that far. Being descended from royalty it’s no surprise to learn that Lord Ivar is a descendant or cousin to gay kings and royals from history, including Edward II of England, James I of Great Britain, Ludwig II of Bavaria, Friedrich II of Prussia, and Gustav III of Sweden.

Lord Ivar’s ancestry through his grandmother, the wife of the 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven, is just as grand the Battenburgs and Queen Victoria. It includes another morganatic marriage. Ivar’s grandmother, Countess Nadejda de Torby (1896-1963) was the daughter of Grand Duke Mikhail Mikhailovich of Russia, a grandson of Tsar Nikolai I, who had married Sofia von Merenburg, Countess of Torby.

Countess Sofia’s ancestry reveals surprising bloodlines. She was a child of another morganatic marriage. Her father, Prince Nicholas von Nassau-Weilberg, married Natalia Pushkine, who was created Countess of Merenberg. If her surname looks familiar it’s because her father was the famous Russian writer Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837). Pushkin is mentioned in my article on Count Sergei Uvarov.

What is a real surprise is Alexander Pushkin’s own ancestry. His great-grandfather was an African slave.

Abram Petrovich Gannibal (d.1781), as he is now named, was the son of a tribal chief in what is now Cameroon. The chief was killed in a battle against the Ottomans and Abram was taken as a slave to Turkey, and later to the court of Tsar Peter the Great.

Abram’s remarkable rise for slavery to the ranks of Russian nobility is covered extensively in the internet. Pushkin himself was immensely proud of his African ancestry and though his Lord Ivar Mountbatten is of mixed-race descent.

So far we’ve only looked at Lord Ivar’s paternal ancestry. His mother’s family tree is just as diverse.

Janet Mercedes Bryce married Lord Ivar’s father in 1960. Ivar was named after her cousin Ivar Bryce (1906-1985), who brings another American connection into the family. Ivar Bryce married the grandmother of lgbt activist Julia Pell (1953-2006).

While Ivar’s paternal ancestry contains many European leaders, his mother’s reveals many South American leaders. Janet’s grandmother was the sister of Manuel Candamo, President of Peru 1903-4. Through the Candamo’s Lord Ivar is 4th cousin to Manuel Odria, President and military dictator of Peru 1948-56.

Lord Ivar’s South American ancestors centre in Peru and Chile. It includes many significant military leaders of the independence movements and colonial governors and mayors. Although I haven’t found any, there is a possibility that Lord Ivar has some indigenous blood, perhaps even Inca. What I have found is that Ivar’s ancestors have been arriving in South America since the days of the Conquistadors in the 16th century.

The families in Ivar’s Hispanic ancestry read like a roll call of the leading noble families in medieval Spain – Álvarez de Toledo, Guzmán, Ponce de Leon and Sotomayor, to name just a few.

Having such an illustrious collection of ancestors was never going to be surprise in Lord Ivar Mountbatten’s family, but little surprises like Pushkin with his African blood and Peruvian presidential links provide one of the most diverse family trees among the minor royals.

Around the World in Another 80 Gays : Part 15) An Island of Beauty

Previously : 28) Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) and 29) FannyAnn Eddy (1974-2004) are jointly commemorated in the human rights organisation the Hirschfeld-Eddy Foundation, co-founded by 30) Joey Joleen Mataele, who also founded the Miss Galaxy pageant modelled on the western beauty contest, in which the earliest known lgbt contestant was 31) Julia Lemigova (b.1972).

31) Julia Lemigova was not out as lgbt when she competed in the Miss USSR 1990 pageant. The Soviet government had banned beauty pageants in 1959. It was during the Perestroika era under more democratic leadership that these contests were revived.

The first national Soviet female beauty pageant, called Miss Moscow Beauty, was held in 1988. The following year it was renamed Miss USSR. Julia Lemigova entered the pageant in 1990 and came second. However, the winner was “dethroned” when she got married, making Julia the new Miss USSR 1990. She thus became eligible to enter the Miss Universe 1991 pageant in Las Vegas. On that occasion she came third.

Her move to France after the Miss Universe pageant developed into something that was other than glamorous. In 1997 she met banker Edouard Stern and began a relationship which resulted in the birth of a son, Maximilien. Maximilien was in the care of his father when he suffered a fatal brain injury. He was only 6 months old. There may never be a satisfactory explanation, but conspiracy theories abound, involving Stern’s bank, suppressed autopsy results and a disappearing nanny.

After her son’s death Julia Lemigova became a successful international businesswoman with several cosmetics companies to her name. In 2009 she became the girlfriend of tennis legend Martina Navratilova. They became engaged in a very public manner at the US Open tennis tournament in 2014 and were married later that year.

As far as can be determined Julia Lemigova was the first former national beauty pageant winner to reveal a same-sex relationship. There have been several others since then, the most recent being last month - Diedre Downs Gunn, Miss USA 2005.

There have been a handful of openly lgbt reigning national pageant queens. The first was 32) Patricia Yurena Rodriguez (b.1990). It was as the reigning Miss Spain 2013 that she came out as lesbian. Her titles cover a range of several years. They are:

Miss Tenerife 2007,
Miss Spain 2008 (and entry into Miss World 2008)
Miss Tenerife 2013, and
Miss Universe Spain 2013 (and entry into Miss Universe 2013).

Patricia was unable to enter Miss Universe 2008 because was under the 18-year-old age limit (Spain was represented by her runner-up). Later in the year, after she passed her 18th birthday, Patricia represented Spain in the Miss World pageant.

Patricia’s young age went in her favour five years later when, usually for female pageant contestants after so many years, she was again voted Miss Tenerife 2013. By this time the Miss Spain pageant had been divided into two, one pageant for Miss World and the other for Miss Universe. Patricia Yurena Rodriguez won the Miss Universe Spain pageant with entry into Miss Universe 2013 to be held in Moscow.

Sadly, we have to bring some ugliness into all this beauty by introducing two politicians who, unfortunately, are still around – Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. Putin was responsible for the laws against homosexuality which not only saw protests at Miss Universe but also at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics held two months later.

The only reason Miss Universe was being held in Moscow was because Donald Trump, who owned the Miss Universe organisation at the time, had commercial links in Russia. It’s too complicated to go into, but it’s a fact that the venue of Miss Universe 2013, half of the judges, and several contestants who were selected by businessmen and not by the public, had business links to Trump.

The compere of the previous two Miss Universe pageants was American openly gay broadcaster Andy Cohen. He had also compered several Miss USA pageants, but he refused to host Miss Universe 2013 because of the anti-gay laws. Trump found a replacement, another openly gay American broadcaster, Thomas Roberts. Recently, Roberts made a public apology and regretted agreeing to act as pageant host in view of more recent Trump-Putin-Russia revelations.

That’s enough political ugliness. Let’s return to beauty. Patricia Yurena Rodriguez, Miss Universe Spain, was voted the first runner-up (i.e. second) in Miss Universe 2013 in Moscow. Less than a year later she came out on Instagram becoming the first reigning national pageant queen to do so.

Spain is unique in that it is the only nation who has had both a male and female lgbt national pageant winner. What’s more remarkable is that they both held the same regional title.

33) Daniel Rodriguez (b.1993) (no relation to Patricia as far as I know) won the Mr Tenerife title in 2016. In June 2016 he won the Mr International Spain pageant (again, there’s two Spain pageants; Mr International is the male equivalent of Miss Universe). Just days later, still in the media circus that follows the pageant finals, he came out as gay. This was deliberate. He had wanted to show that a gay man can enter and win any national pageant title. However, his reign was short. Daniel wasn’t happy with the way the Mr International Spain organisers were using him in their promotions and he resigned in October 2016.

It’s not only national pageants that Tenerife and the Canary Islands can boast to have the first lgbt representatives. The islands can also boast five political firsts in Spain, all of them achieved by just two people, the first person holding four of them. His name is 34) Jerónimo Saavedra (b.1936).

Next time : From an Atlantic island to a national capital and international activism.

Star Gayzing : The Biggest Homohoax Ever?

It’s not often that I write two articles with the same theme next to each other unless they’re directly connected, but today I stay with the astronomical theme because of an event that took place last week. It’s a subject I had scheduled for later in the year, but it was too topical to wait till then.

Last weekend the first British Flat Earth convention was held in Birmingham. If they are right about the Flat Earth then the idea of a spherical one must be the biggest homohoax ever! (See here for my explanation of a homohoax).

First of all, let’s take ourselves back in history to the “Gayest Games in Ancient Greece”, the Greater Panathenaean Games These were the local “Olympics” held for the citizens of Athens once very four years (with Lesser Panathenaean Games in the years in between).

At one of the games in around 450 BC the young Socrates, the famous philosopher, was a spectator. There he met one of the celebrity philosophers of the day, Parmenides of Elea (picture below). Parmenides was said to be around 65 years old at the time and was accompanied by a younger man, another philosopher called Zeno of Elea. The meeting was recorded many years later by yet another philosopher, Plato. He added that Zeno had been Parmenides’ “eromenos”.

“Eromenos”, a word coming from the same origin as the name of Eros, the god of gay sex, is the term used to describe a young boy Greek men took as his sexual partner (it was Parmenides who wrote, in the poem mentioned below, that Eros was the first Greek god to be created). The Greeks were suspicious of any man who didn’t have an eromenos. Plato hero-worshipped Parmenides, so he must have got to know all there was to know about him as any fan would.

These sexual relationships lasted until the boy was about 20 and got married, but the male couple would always remain close for the rest of their lives. That’s why the old Parmenides had the adult Zeno accompanying him to the Greater Panathenaean Games. Both may have had wives, but women were not allowed to attend the games, just as they weren’t at the Olympics.

By the time Parmenides met Socrates at the Panathenaean Games he had already produced the most important ideas that shaped what we now call metaphysics and ontology. Three ideas in particular had cosmic consequences.

Surviving fragments of the poem by Parmenides, the poem in which he refers to Eros as the first Greek god, set out his philosophy. The poem was originally about 800 verses long but only about 160 verses survive. Basically his aim was to provide a philosophical theory of reality – what is real, and what is not. He used astronomy to help explain his theory.

Parmenides saw change as an illusion. The entire universe has never changed since its creation, including past, present and future, and that space is infinite. In this respect he can be seen to suggest the universe is infinite which until then was thought to consist of a solid sphere around the Earth on which the stars were fixed.

The theory of an infinite universe led centuries later to the Renaissance scientist Giordano Bruno to theorise that in an infinite universe there is an infinite number of Suns, more than the stars that are visible, and that each Sun had planets like Earth orbiting them. What got him into trouble with the Catholic Church was his theory that these infinite Earths were identical to ours and had a Christ on them all. This went against the Church’s teaching of there being only one Christ, not an infinite number, so Bruno was put on trial for heresy and executed.

Going back to Parmenides let’s look at how he theorised that the Earth was spherical. Until his time the Earth as thought to be flat and the Sun travelled over the Earth once, and a brand new Sun dawned the following day. Some say Pythagoras came up with the idea of a spherical Earth long before Parmenides, but this is no more than attributing later great deeds to great men of the past. At best, the theories of Earth’s shape were ambiguous and not specific enough to claim that it was spherical. Generally, however, Greek scientists agreed that the Earth was at least curved because they could see changes in the Sun and stars positions at different geographical locations.

It was Parmenides who took the curved Earth idea further by suggesting it was spherical. The sphere was perfect shape and the Earth was perfect, he theorised. However, he went further by claiming the universe revolved around the Earth.

One piece of evidence he presented was what happened during a lunar eclipse. He wrote that we can only see the Moon because it is always facing the Sun. At a lunar eclipse he said that it was the Earth’s shadow which darkened the Moon’s surface, and that the curved shadow on the Moon proves the Earth is a sphere. What’s more, it proved that the Sun does not die when it sets but that it travels behind the spherical Earth to dawn the next day, and has done so since time began.

By the 4th century BC Greek philosophers all believed in a spherical Earth. The idea passed on to the early Christian Church which began in Greece. The Church represented the spherical earth in early Medieval frescos of the 6th century of Christ sat on a big ball (a bit like a space hopper!), and also in coronations. One of the crown jewels presented to new kings at their coronation is a golden orb with a cross on the top, symbolising God’s power over a spherical earth. If the Church believed in a flat earth, as the attendees of the recent Flat Earth convention in Birmingham do, then the new kings would be given a piece of paper or a map instead of an orb.

Probably the most familiar depiction of a medieval coronation, that of William the Conqueror in 1066 as shown on the Bayeux tapestry, and of the Church’s recognition of a spherical earth. William holds high the orb he received from the archbishop as a symbol of the world.

Parmenides’ theories and ideas influenced the whole of cosmological thought through all succeeding centuries and to the present day. So, if we believe the Flat Earthers are right, then the entire scientific community for 2,500 years has become victim to the most cosmic homohoax in history.

Star Gayzing : Polar Bears

Let’s get straight into it and look up at the night sky again at two of the most recognisable constellations in the northern hemisphere – Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.

Also known as the Great Bear and the Little Bear these constellations circle the current celestial North Pole. These constellations have been pictured as bears since Ancient Greece when Ursa Major was called Arktos.

The Greeks explained the presence of two bears in the sky through the myth of Callisto. She was a nymph who was one of the hunting entourage of the goddess Artemis (known as Diana to the Romans). Artemis required all her entourage to be virgins, like herself. This can be seen as the power of feminism over a patriarchal society – no man is going to dominate them.

However, if you know something of Greek mythology you’ll know that sex will rear its head sooner or later, especially for a mythological virgin. The great pansexual king of the gods, Zeus, was particularly taken by Callisto (well, her name means “most beautiful”). The problem Zeus had was how to have sex with her. It’s not a problem you have for long if you’re a shape-shifting deity like Zeus, so he transformed himself into a doppelganger of Artemis and made an amorous advance on Callisto when she was on her own.

The seduction of Callisto became a popular theme in art. It has been variously depicted as an act of rape, a loving embrace between two women, or something much more erotic (usually to please the male eye). The imagery became decidedly lesbian and has become part of lesbian lore.

“Jupiter in the Guise of Diana and Callisto” by Jean-Simon Berthelemy

The patriarchal interpretation of the myth puts Callisto in a subservient role, exactly what the real Artemis wanted to avoid. The matriarchal-feminist interpretation highlights the lesbian aspect of Callisto willingly succumbing to the sexual advances of her mistress and remaining in her service afterwards knowing she had broken her vow. As the Roman goddess Diana, Artemis has become the central goddess in a modern neo-pagan faith called Dianic Wicca, a female-only faith established in 1971.

It’s what happened after Callisto’s seduction that has been depicted more often in art. For several months everything was fine. Knowing she was supposed to remain a virgin, even if she believed it was Artemis who made her pregnant, Callisto hid her condition. She bathed alone in a river, but another nymph saw her and noticed that she was heavily pregnant and informed Artemis.

Artemis was understandably, furious. She banished Callisto from her entourage. This banishment is depicted in art many times. The painting “Diana and Callisto” by Richard Wilson (1713-1782) showing this episode is listed as part of the lgbt collection of the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Liverpool.

Callisto later gave birth to a son whom she named Arcas. But if she thought her troubles were over she was mistaken. Very soon after the birth Zeus’s wife Hera recognised Arcas as her husband’s illegitimate son. This time it was Hera who was furious and as punishment turned Callisto into a bear.

Just in time Zeus spirited baby Arcas away. Eventually he became the king of a nation named after him – Arcadia. Like his mother Callisto Arcas was a great hunter. One day he was hunting bear when he saw a bear bounding towards him (you can probably guess what’s going to happen next). The bear was Callisto, eager to be reunited with her son. But he didn’t know that, and was about to shoot an arrow into her when Zeus stepped in and transformed him into a bear as well. He then flung both bears into the sky and they became Ursa Major (Callisto) and Ursa Minor (Arcas).

Because of their prominent positions in the sky, particularly Ursa Major, the constellations have been depicted on flags and in heraldry. The most famous of these flags is the state flag of Alaska (pictured at the top) which is actually the reason I’m writing about Ursa Major and Ursa Minor today. Today is the 91st anniversary of the flag being adopted by Alaska.

In heraldry Ursa Major has been featured in the coat of arms of the composer Richard Wagner and his gayson Siegfried (1869-1930) which I wrote about in 2014. There I explained that several German families called Wagner adopted Ursa Major for their coat of arms because it is a pun on their name. In German “plough” is “wagen”, and in Germany Ursa Major is known as the Great Wagon.

Returning to the nymph Callisto. As well as Ursa Major she is represented as one of the moons of the planet Jupiter. The four largest moons, called Galilean moons after the famous scientist who discovered them, are all named after some of Jupiter’s/Zeus’s famous amorous encounters. The two largest moons are Ganymede and Callisto. I find it interesting that they are named after Zeus’s lovers which are based on same-sex attraction.

Finally, I find it baffling why the lgbt bear community hasn’t taken advantage of the Ursa Major image and used it to produce more distinctive flags and logos. Maybe I’ll design some myself.

Jupiter's Galilean moons