Homohoax : The Popish Plot

The conflict between Catholics and Protestants in the UK lasted several centuries, dominating the Tudor period and causing the demise of the Stuart dynasty. It was an era when propaganda and fake news from both sides led to the execution of innocent people.

Perhaps the most important hoax of the period was the Popish Plot of 1678 which had far-reaching consequences, including the reason Queen Elizabeth II sits on the throne of the UK and not Prince Franz von Wittelsbach, Hereditary Duke of Bavaria.

The Popish Plot was the brainchild of Titus Oates (1649-1705) who spent his entire life telling lies. Even though he was educated at the best schools Titus was not good academically and got thrown out of all of them. It was remarked, however, that he had a good memory, something which is an apocryphal requirement for anyone who habitually lies.

Portrait of Titus Oates by an unknown artist (Wikimedia Commons)

Titus went to Cambridge University but left before completing any courses. That didn’t stop him from falsely claiming he had a degree in order to obtain a license to preach in 1670. He became Vicar of Bobbing in Kent and then became curate to his father, a Protestant clergyman, in Hastings.

There Titus began fabricating stories about other people. He accused a school master of having sex with his boy pupils in order to get him fired (and executed under the Buggery Act of 1534). Titus hoped he would be given the job of master. The accusations was proved false and Titus was charged with perjury. The irony of this is that Titus himself had earned a reputation for homosexuality while he was at Cambridge.

Realising his plan had backfired Titus fled to escape trial and in 1675 was appointed chaplain on the ship “Adventurer”. He didn’t serve on the ship long before he was accused of homosexuality. As an ordained priest he had the “benefit of the clergy” and escaped execution. This is probably the only time when one of his lies, that of having a degree enabling him to be ordained, actually saved his life.

Titus was discharged from the navy and was soon re-arrested to face the perjury charges in Hastings. Again, he escaped. For a few months he conned his way into the employ of the Duke of Norfolk, the senior Catholic peer in England. This job didn’t last long either and he returned to London.

In London Titus met Rev. Israel Tonge, a critic of the Jesuits, the powerful order of Catholic priests, and he persuaded Titus to write propaganda pamphlets against them. To help him find reasons to fabricate accusations against them Titus feigned conversion to Catholicism and joined a Jesuit college in Spain. Five months later, in November 1677, the Jesuits threw him out for “scandalous behaviour”. Titus then found a placement in a Jesuit seminary in France, who also threw him out after a few months. It was on his return to England that he concocted the Popish Plot.

It began with persuading an acquaintance to intercept King Charles II in St. James’s Park one morning in August 1678 and warn him of a plot by the Jesuits to assassinate him. This plot was backed up by a lengthy manuscript, written by Titus Oates, which outlined the plot in detail and named almost a hundred conspirators.

The king was highly sceptical but the government believed it and began an investigation. Before the Privy Council Titus repeated his accusations with many additional elaborations. The king noticed glaring discrepancies in his statements but the Privy Council, like the government, believed him and had several alleged conspirators arrested.

As anti-Catholic hysteria grew Titus Oates came up with new accusations against five Catholic lords. Again, the king was sceptical but parliament believed him and sent the lords of the Tower of London. One was executed, one died naturally and the others were freed on a technicality. It was at this time that some MPs started to demand that the king’s Catholic brother, James, Duke of York, be excluded from succession to the throne. They also managed to ban Catholics from being members of both Houses of Parliament. By the end of 1678 Catholics had been forced out of London.

As arrests of the innocent increased the public began to be aware that something wasn’t quite right. People they knew were innocent were being arrested. Even the courts began to side with caution. Eventually the Chief Justice of England started to throw out all new accusations. The king himself was horrified at the number of people who were executed over something he didn’t believe existed, and pardoned everyone who were convicted or awaiting trial.

By now the end was in sight for Titus Oates’ scheme. Having realised that the Popish Plot was a hoax the authorities arrested him for perjury. His trial was presided over by the infamous Judge Jeffreys who sentenced him to life imprisonment. To ensure his total humiliation he also ordered that Titus be whipped and pilloried in public five days a years.

Engraving of Titus Oates in the pillory, taken from “Chambers’ Book of Days” 1864.

Even though the Popish Plot was uncovered many of its consequences remain to this day. Supporters of the exclusion of the Duke of York from the throne were nicknamed Whigs, and opponents were nicknamed Tories. These names survived for several centuries as names of political parties which eventually became the Liberal and Conservative Parties respectively. Conservative MPs are still called Tories.

Thanks to Tory support in the House of Commons the Duke of York succeeded his brother as King James II of England. The Whigs, however, kept pushing for total Catholic exclusion and eventually forced James to flee the country. The Protestant Prince of Orange was invited to take the throne with his wife, King James’s Protestant daughter, in 1688 and they reigned jointly as King William III and Queen Mary II. To ensure Protestant succession parliament passed the Act of Settlement 1701 by which the current rules of succession to the British throne are governed. The Catholic family of ex-King James led several rebellions in attempts to regain the throne. These were the Jacobite rebellions (more of which later this week).

Even today there are Jacobite supporters who consider that Prince Franz of Bavaria is the rightful king of the UK, being the most senior Catholic descendant of the family.

As for Titus Oates, after being hailed as a national hero for uncovering the Popish Plot, and then hated once it was revealed to be a hoax, he ended his life in obscurity. He had been pardoned by William and Mary, but was largely forgotten by the British public when he died in 1705.

Despite his ignominious final years Titus may actually have the last laugh. He wanted Catholics off the throne of England and that is what happened.

Around the World in Another 80 Gays : Part 20) The 41

Previously : 39) Ivor Novello (1893-1951) failed to become a Hollywood sex symbol, unlike 40) Ramon Novarro (1899-1968) who had escaped Mexico City after 41) Amelio Robles Avila (1889-1984) and the Zapatistas took it over in the Mexican Revolution, one of whose origins was in a scandal involving 42) The Dance of The 41 (1901).

Unlike the Sacred Band ofThebes in January I can’t represent 42) The Dance of The 41 with a single representative because their names have not been revealed. Only one name has been linked to The 41, that of Ignacio de la Torre y Mier, the son-in-law of Mexican President Diaz. Some of the allegations of Diaz’s corruption centred round the cover-up and conspiracy of silence that surrounded this homosexual scandal in 1901.

A contemporary satirical leaflet about the Dance of The 41.

The identities of The 41 was suppressed and removed from Mexican history, though the significance of their number as a derogatory term for homosexual men continues in the public consciousness today. There is no conclusive proof that Ignacio de la Torre y Mier was one of The 41 (or The 42), only rumours of his participation after the media began to report the incident.

Lgbt history is full of anonymous victims of persecution and the Dance of The 41 is a perfect example. All we know about them is that police raided a private address in Mexico City in the early hours of 17th November 1901. There the police found 41 men, 19 of them dressed as women, having a dance party. This was enough for them all to be arrested.

Most of those present at the party were probably members of the highest social levels in Mexico City, so there was enough pressure on President Diaz from powerful families to keep the names of those present secret.

No-one is sure what happened to The 41. It is said that half of them were released without charge through the influence of their wealthy families. The others were said to have been sentenced to hard labour in prison. Ever since then the number 41 has been stigmatised and associated with homosexuality. Even some hotels in Mexico have no Room 41. Over a century later the number 41 was reclaimed as a mark of honour by the lgbt community in much the same way as the Nazi pink triangle was in the 1970s.

43) Alberto B. Mendoza (b.1971), an activist living in the USA, was bullied at school in his native Mexico because of his sexuality. He was called “41” but didn’t realise the true origin of this insult until his 41st birthday when he decided to find out why. This led him to discover the story of the Dance of The 41 and to create a charity named after them which campaigns to combat homophobia in the Latin American and Hispanic communities.

Alberto’s charity, Honor41, produces an annual list of 41 lgbt Latin American pioneers and heroes from all walks of life. The first list was published in 2013. With over 200 names from which to continue my 80 Gays I took one at random. The name I chose was 44) Dr. Alicia Gaspar de Alba (b.1958).

Dr. Alicia Gaspar de Alba appeared on the 2016 Honor41 list. She is an academic at the University of California Los Angeles which she joined in 1994 and specialises in Hispanic studies and is a prolific writer on the subject.

Dr. Alicia was born in El Paso in Texas near the Mexican border. One incident near El Paso in the 1990s inspired her to write a mystery novel. The incident concerned the very real unsolved murders of over 500 Mexican women. Alicia spent several years researching their deaths. With so many questions and few answers Alicia decided to write a novel based on the murders. The novel, “Desert Blood” (published 2005), featured the murder of Mexican women and the problems of immigration and treatment of female immigrants by the authorities.

For “Desert Blood” Alicia received the Lambda Literary Award for the Best Lesbian Mystery. Murder and mystery is genre in which women have always been prominent. Writers like Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Ruth Rendell, P. D. James, among others, have produced some of the most popular mystery novels. Leading the lgbt contingent of female mystery writers are Val McDermid and Patricia Cornwell.

The person generally credited with starting the modern lesbian mystery genre is 45) Katherine V. Forrest (b.1939). Katherine’s 1984 novel “Amateur City” featured a lesbian homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department by the name of Kate Delafield, the first lesbian detective to feature in her own series of novels. Of the nine published books in the series Katherine Forrest has won 7 Lambda Literary Awards.

Katherine was also the fiction editor of Naiad Press for ten years. Naiad Press was one of the first publishing houses which concentrated on books by lesbian writers founded in 1973. In 2003 the founders retired and sold their stock and titles to another publisher specialising in lesbian literature, Bella Books.

Bella Books also produces foreign translations of their books. These include into French, German and Spanish. Some translations of Bella Books became the first novels published by LePress. Despite sounding French, this publishing company is based in the Czech Republic. The founder of LePress is 46) Markéta Navrátilová (b.1975).

Next time : Czech Pride takes to the air.

The First Openly Gay Olympian - A Century Ago

With the World Cup dominating the television channels at the moment let’s take a look at another sport which is just behind in media coverage – tennis.

What can connect the two sports is the issue of lgbt inclusion. Football is notorious for not welcoming (male) lgbt players, despite their worthless paper declarations to the contrary. Reports of homophobic chants at World Cup matches and the general anti-gay stance of the host nation Russia has highlighted the problems.

The issue of lgbt inclusion in sport goes back further than you might think, and it illustrates well the long-standing homophobia of football and its damaging influence on other sports.

At the beginning of the 20th century Danish tennis tournaments were governed by the Dansk Bolspil-Union (DBU, the Danish Football Union). One of the stars of Danish tennis was Leif Rovsing (1887-1977). Between 1907 and 1916 he won five national doubles championships.

Leif Rovsing came from a wealthy family. On the whole tennis was a sport of the wealthy while football was a favoured sport of the ordinary working people. This was a European-wide distinction and in football, with its class prejudices, echoes of this distinction still linger. Leif joined the Copenhagen Ball Club, a member of the DBU, which had a tennis section.

At the Wimbledon tournament in 1910 Leif competed in both the men’s singles and doubles competitions, though he was knocked out in the second round of the singles tournament by Britain’s Lt. L. E. Milburn, and knocked out of the doubles tournament in the first round by the Fyzee brothers from India.

Despite this Leif was Danish national singles champion, and in 1912 qualified for the Stockholm Olympics. Again, he played in the outdoor singles and doubles tournaments (in those days there was both an indoor and outdoor tournament). He only played two matches, both of which he lost and didn’t progress to the next round. Yesterday and today are the anniversaries of those two matches.

His first match on 29th June 1912 was against Sweden’s Sven Wennergen in the third round, after having been awarded a walkover result in his first scheduled match. With his doubles partner Victor Hansen Leif played against a Russian couple in the second round on 30th July, again after a walkover decision in their first scheduled match.

These matches on 29th and 30th June 1912 at the Stockholm Olympics make Leif Rovsing (abovve) the first known lgbt Olympian.

Also at Stockholm was fellow gay Dane Niels Bukh who was coach to the gold medal winning Swedish men’s gymnastics team. Niels had hoped to compete at the previous games in London 1908 but was dropped from the Danish gymnastics team because he was too muscular and butch and his physique didn’t fit in with those of the rest of the team.

In 1917 the DBU began investigating reports that Leif Rovsing had sexual relations at his home with an 18-year-old male tennis student. We are still familiar with the old homophobic excuse that gay men are a corrupting influence on the young, and the DBU used this as their reason to ban Leif from playing in any tennis tournament for four years.

At the investigation committee Leif admitted that he did indeed have intimate moments with young men, without actually admitted to sexual activity which would undoubtedly have resulted in a life ban.

As such this also makes Leif Rovsing the first openly gay former Olympian in 1917.

Tennis was Leif’s life. Having inherited a fortune from his father he didn’t need to find employment and he lived for tennis. He urged the DBU to reconsider their ban, but to no avail. Using part of his fortune he set up his own private tennis club, the Dansk Tennis Club, in 1919.

In 1921 the ban on Leif’s playing career expired and he immediately launched himself back onto the Danish tennis circuit. The newly-formed Danish Lawn Tennis Association invited Leif to become a member of their team heading to the 1923 Indoor Tennis World Championships in Barcelona. With doubles partner Erik Tegner he reached the final, but lost to the French couple Henri Cochet and Jean Couiteas.

Things seemed to be returning to normal for Leif, but in the background the Copenhagen Ball Club reopened the 1917 case and called for a renewed investigation. They recommended a further ban on Leif Rovsing in 1924, which the DBU agreed to put into force. However, this time there was at least a little leeway for Leif. Even though he was banned from playing for Danish clubs or from representing Denmark he could play against Danish players abroad, as long as their clubs agreed.

For a couple of years there was the hope of a revival to his career. In 1927 the Klovermarkens Tennis Club organised a tournament at which Leif was invited to play. Lots of top Danish players were also invited but, because these players were members of the Danish Lawn Tennis Association, one of the organisations included in the 1924 ban and still under the control of the Danish Football Union, the Association refused to allow Leif to take part. The Klovermarkens Tennis Club took the DBU to court and, once again, the unfounded belief that gay men are a corrupting influence dominated the case and a new ban was imposed on Leif.

With his professional tennis career now over Leif concentrated on his own Dansk Tennis Club. He travelled extensively in the Far East and recaptured his love of its culture in the decoration of the club buildings. He then began to concentrate on a campaign to demand that lgbt athletes in all sports should not be discriminated against and allowed to compete at the same level as any other athlete. This he did through letters, magazines and lectures.

After World War II Leif began writing regular articles in “Vennen”, the magazine published by the Forbundet af 1948 (The Association of 1948), the gay rights organisation founded by the activist couple Axel and Eigil Axgil. Leif also contributed financially towards the publication coats of the magazine.

In 1955 police raided the offices of “Vennen” is response to reports that it had published pornographic images of boys. The police extended their raids to the homes of people they considered were directly responsible for publishing the images. Leif Rovsing’s home was one of them. He was arrested and held in custody for fifteen days before being released. Leif was convinced an unfounded accusation made of him having sex with a teenage boy was made against him out of revenge for him writing against the DBU.

Leif continued to write articles for lgbt publications up to his death in 1977. He had blazed a trail of activism in sport for fifty years, and all funded though his inherited fortune. He didn’t ask for donations and he had no charitable organisation to fund his work. He left his fortune to the Dansk Tennis Fund which he had founded to manage his Dansk Tennis Club. The Club is still in existence today.

Leif Rovsing was the first openly gay athlete to challenge the established homophobia in sport, and in particular against the football organisations who controlled tennis in those days.

With the world in the midst of football and tennis frenzy it would be appropriate to bring Leif Rovsing out of the shadows and give him his rightful place as a pioneer of lgbt inclusion in sport.

Around the World in Another 80 Gays : Part 19) Tarzan Speaks and Mexico Revolts

Previously : 31) Clive Aspin is active in the promotion of pride among traditional Maori sexualities, an example of which appears in the legend of 38) Tutanekia which is commemorated in a popular World War I song, similar in sentiment to another popular war-time song by 39) Ivor Novello (1893-1951).

39) Ivor Novello’s original name was David Ivor Davies, and you can’t get a more Welsh name than that. He was born in the Welsh capital of Cardiff. His mother, Clara Novello Davies, was a renowned singing teacher and founder of a women’s choir and it was her musical connections that got Ivor his start in music. Ivor would change his name to Novello legally later in life.

Ivor’s first significant contribution to music was during World War I when he wrote the music to a poem written by an American writer. This song was “Keep the Homes Fires Burning”. It was published shortly after war was declared. The sentiment of the words made the song a success, and after the British public adopted it as a patriotic message to their brave boys fighting in France it became as popular as the Maori song “Pokarekare Ana” was in New Zealand during World War II.

After the war Ivor wrote many songs and musical comedies. As his fame spread so did publicity shots, and it was one of these that put him on the road to the silver screen. Film-makers thought he had the perfect looks for a romantic lead in silent films. He starred in two early Alfred Hitchcock films, “The Lodger” and “Downhill” (which Ivor also wrote). By 1930 Ivor Novello was the UK’s top male film star.

He was soon given a contract as a writer and actor by MGM in Hollywood. It was for MGM that Ivor wrote what can easily be his most famous line. It doesn’t come from a song, but from a film. Even more than 80 years after the film was released in 1932 they have been repeated many, many times. Ivor’s words are “Me Tarzan, you Jane” from the film “Tarzan the Ape Man”. Ivor later said, “I never wrote such rubbish in my life”.

His acting career was equally disappointing. He only appeared in one film for MGM and his position as a rising Hollywood leading man and sex symbol came to nothing. He came back to the UK and carried on with his musical career to greater success.

Perhaps the problem was with Hollywood. The silent film industry was relatively small and there was very little room for more than one handsome hero. The death of Hollywood’s first sex symbol, Rudolf Valentino (himself surrounded by a whole network of lgbt connections, including one which I’ll mention later), in 1926 left a void that was hard to fill. Even though Ivor Novello was of heart-throb of British cinema and more than capable of filling Valentino’s romantic shoes he was not really a swash-buckling action hero. Besides, MGM had another actor they were also grooming as a “New Valentino”, a young gay immigrant from Mexico called Jose Sarmeniego. MGM turned him into the sex symbol who became known as 40) Ramon Novarro (1899-1968).

40) Ramon Novarro had been acting in silent films since 1916. When Ivor Novello was being the star of British films Ramon gained stardom as Ben Hur in 1925. MGM were already billing him as a “Latin Lover” and he quickly became the frontrunner to fill the shoes of Valentino which Ivor Novello couldn’t.

Unlike Ivor Novello, Ramon Novarro struggled with his sexuality. As with other gay men in early Hollywood he was “encouraged” to marry just for the sake of the studio’s reputation. He refused. When his MGM contract finished he found work hard to find, although he didn’t need to work because his salary from 20 years with MGM was enough for him to live on for the rest of his life.

By the 1960s Ramon was virtually forgotten. He appeared in a handful of American tv series as guest star, but the manner of his death in 1968 brought him back into the spotlight – for the wrong reasons.

Ramon often hired male prostitutes to come to his Hollywood mansion. Two brothers got hold of his address and posed as rent-boys. They believed Ramon must have lots of money at his home. When Ramon refused to give them any he was tied up, tortured and beaten. Ramon died in agony, chocking on his own blood. The brothers got away with only 20 dollars. Over the years various sensational “details” of his death were published, including the unfounded claim that Ramon’s body was found with a sex toy which Rudolf Valentino had given him.

Ramon Novarro was born in Mexico into a highly respected family. By the time he was a teenager Mexico was in turmoil. Mexican President Diaz lost the support of his people. There was corruption, inflation and unemployment, and eventually revolution broke out. Ramon and his family were living in Durango at the time. In 1913 Durango was besieged by rebels and counter-rebels and the family escaped to Mexico City.

In Mexico City inter-rebel fighting led to the arrival in the city of an individual whose story I told in more detail in “A Revolutionary Colonel”, 51) Amelio Robles Avila (1889-1984). While Robles Avila continued to fight for the Zapatista forces Ramon Novarro and his family returned to Durango which had become relatively safe. In 1916 they decided to escape the revolution by entering the USA. Almost immediately Ramon entered the film industry with uncredited bit parts in several films before becoming a star after his role in the title character in the 1925 film “Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ”.

Among the other reasons why the Mexican Revolution occurred was a scandal implicating President Diaz’s son-in-law. Some 42 men were arrested in a police raid on an all-male party. Only 41 of them were arrested, which is why the incident is (quite appropriately in this sequence of 80 Gays) called 42) The Dance of the 41 (1901).

Next time : The nameless 41 lead us to murder in the Czech Republic.