Charlemagne, The Father of Europe, died in the year 814 and left only one surviving son to take the helm of the Carolingian Empire, which spanned the lion's share of the European continent. But his heir, Louis the Pious, had three sons, who each got a parcel of the empire when he died. Then those kings had children of their own, dividing the kingdom up until factions and branches of Charlemagne's lineage occupied independent power centers from the border of modern Denmark all the way down to Ita...
Sep 05, 2024•37 min•Ep. 76
Content note: This episode contains descriptions of sexual violence and coercion that may not be appropriate for all listeners. Though only in power for eight years, the Ottoman Empire's Ibrahim the Mad made his own mark on history as a notoriously bad ruler, a sexual deviant, but also a bit of a fashion plate. He loved his furs and sparkly jewels. He also made unwise decisions in foreign affairs, as when he responded to pirates by launching what would turn into a 24-year-long war with the Repub...
Aug 29, 2024•41 min•Ep. 75
We are excited to share a show we're loving with you! American Prankster: Wavy Gravy's Life Story pairs the legendary entertainer and activist with our friend, podcaster Rainbow Valentine, following the incredible ride of a life that Wavy Gravy has been on through decades of American counterculture. Enjoy this sample, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Aug 28, 2024•6 min
In its many thousands of years of history, China has had only one official ruling monarch who was a woman. Sure, there were powerful Empress Consorts who pulled the strings of weak Emperor husbands, but Empress Wu Zetian ambitiously, and ruthlessly, upended convention to claim the throne in her own name. Born to a prosperous and well-connected family sometimes in the first half of the 620s, Wu joined the Imperial Court at the age of 14 in the privileged position of concubine to the Emperor. Inst...
Aug 22, 2024•36 min•Ep. 74
As the Romanov era closed, some family members were more fortunate than others. Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, youngest daughter of Tsar Alexander III and baby sister of the doomed Tsar Nicholas II, may be the most fortunate of the Romanov clan, escaping the country and living out a happy life in Denmark and Canada. Born into a large, loving, royal family that summered with the horde of European royal relatives at her grandfather's castle in Denmark - this was Christian IX, the so-called "fath...
Aug 15, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 73
Most Americans have at least a basic sense of key elements of European history, but that's not necessarily true when it comes to places like China. And that's true for us, too. Today we take our first dive into China's extremely long history - 4,000 years by some accounts! - to meet three notably trashy emperors of the Ming Dynasty, which ruled China from 1368 to 1644. Hongwu Emperor was the first Ming Emperor, who seized the throne after a long-running rebellion against the Mongol-led Yuan Dyna...
Aug 08, 2024•44 min•Ep. 72
Powerful women have always had to play the game a little differently than their male counterparts, but the story of Irene of Athens, who played politics with enough dexterity to become Empress of the Byzantine Empire for about 20 years in the 8th century, is extraordinarily complicated. The daughter of a prominent Greek family, she was brought to Constantinople as a possible bride for the future Emperor Leo IV. The marriage happened, a son was produced, but religious factionalism ultimately tore...
Aug 01, 2024•45 min•Ep. 71
To round out our Meet the Bonapartes series, we turn to Napoleon's eldest - and apparently coolest - brother, Joseph. Affable, charming, and comfortable in his own skin, he was a contrast to most of his siblings, including Napoleon. His easygoing nature made him popular even with political opponents, and Joseph was an important player in Napoleon's rise. As a reward, Emperor Napoleon named Joseph the King of Naples, where he fashioned himself a man of the people and governed them well, implement...
Jul 25, 2024•32 min•Ep. 70
Napoleon's eldest sister shared many of his more imperious personal qualities, but would prove to be surprisingly gifted at governance after her brother named her Princess of the Italian principalities of Piombino and Lucca. More territories would be added to the holdings she governed, eventually including the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, with Florence as its capital. Napoleon made Elisa its Grand Duchess, but also added new strings to her ability to govern independently. She was obligated to enforce...
Jul 18, 2024•36 min•Ep. 69
It never hurts to have a hype man, and Napoleon's younger brother Lucien just happened to be a talented writer and orator. One could even say he was his brother's propagandist and co-conspirator in a ballot stuffing operation that led to Napoleon's initial domination of the government of France. But Lucien, who was also the tallest of the Bonaparte siblings, came to have significant differences with his brother. The two were at odds for a number of years, with Lucien marrying secretly - twice - ...
Jul 11, 2024•36 min•Ep. 68
Napoleon's meddling in his siblings' lives was the source of considerable angst for several of them. Napoleon had high expectations for his younger brother Louis, but Louis chafed at his brother's authority. Still, he ultimately agreed to marry Napoleon's step-daughter with Josephine, Hortense de Beauharnais, a marriage that would become notable most for the profound unhappiness of its spouses. Four years into their terrible marriage, Napoleon decided that the territory of the modern Netherlands...
Jul 04, 2024•57 min•Ep. 67
If Pauline was Napoleon's most loyal sister, Caroline was undoubtedly his most scheming. As a child, she took orders from her big brother, but as he rose from celebrated military commander to Emperor, she made sure he never forgot to improve her fortunes, as well. After she married one of Napoleon's military advisors - a match he was only persuaded to support by his wife Josephine - Caroline swiftly moved up the odd intra-family career ladder. In 1804, with Napoleon on his self-appointed throne,...
Jun 27, 2024•48 min•Ep. 66
It's probably no surprise that in a family with as much internal intrigue as the Bonapartes had, Napoleon had a favorite among his three sisters. Pauline Bonaparte was eleven years younger than her brother, but was similarly ambitious and was generally happy to take part in his plans for himself and her. A natural beauty with a flirtatious, if slightly sinister, reputation, Napoleon pushed her into two strategic marriages, and ended up with the titles Princess consort of Sulmona and of Rossano -...
Jun 20, 2024•48 min•Ep. 65
Napoleon's youngest brother Jerome was an endless headache for him. Lacking ambition but loving luxury, he fled a stint in the French navy (after nearly sparking a war with England) for America to wait out his brother's wrath. It was in Baltimore that he met the woman who would become his first wife, socialite Elizabeth Patterson. Marrying her against both her father's wishes and his brother's permission created quite a conundrum for all involved. Worse, when the young couple, now pregnant, trie...
Jun 13, 2024•54 min•Ep. 64
When it came time for Napoleon to find a successor to Josephine as his wife, pickings were slimmer than you might expect. Russia's Alexander I wouldn't entertain the idea of a marriage between the French emperor and Alex's youngest sister, Anna Pavlovna. Austria, which had spent years battling - and losing to - France, became the unlikely solution to Napoleon's problem. Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria was 19, suitable in rank, and available. The fact that she was Marie Antoinette's grand-nie...
Jun 06, 2024•57 min•Ep. 63
Part of the joy of history is how resonant it often is. Imagine an ambitious if dysfunctional family with some minor claim to nobility in some far off backwater rising to power - to the highest office in the land - on the strength of a charismatic son known as much for his professional acumen as his arrogant, sometimes outrageous behavior. Welcome to revolutionary France! When the Italian-by-way-of-Corsica Bonaparte family arrived in France in 1779, when young Napoleon was 9, it set into motion ...
May 30, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 62
Long a vassal state to its much larger neighbors, Belgium only became independent in 1830, at which time it decided that what it really needed was a (constitutional) monarchy! Its first king, Leopold I, earned the gig by virtue of being born a Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld prince who had cultivated his relationships with Europe's royal houses during a distinguished military career. Like his son, he was not a paragon of family values, which prompted his second wife, Louise of Orleans, to lash out at their...
May 23, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 61
One of the outcomes of the 20th century's two world wars was the widespread abolition of monarchies across Europe. Some of these events were brutal, as in Russia, but others, like Italy, happened bloodlessly and through the popular will. After a long reign that saw the Kingdom of Italy enthralled by Benito Mussolini's fascist dictatorship, World War II, and King Victor Emmanuel III aiding and abetting it all, the Italian people were exhausted. In an effort to preserve the institution, Victor Emm...
May 16, 2024•43 min•Ep. 60
If you worried that royal houses had gotten a little too genteel by the 19th century, the story of Ranavalona I of Madagascar will disabuse you of that pretty quickly. Seizing the throne in 1828 after the death of her husband, King Radama - despite not being the rightful heir to it - she immediately launched a campaign of murder against her political rivals and potential successors, and summarily ended friendly relations with European nations, including expelling missionaries who had established...
May 09, 2024•46 min•Ep. 59
When she assumed the throne in 1558, she made it clear to the members of her court that they shouldn't plan to have their wives or female companions around the place. She intended to be singular as she consolidated power, but perhaps she had another motive as well; by banishing the wives, Robert Dudley, newly appointed Master of the Horse to Her Majesty the Queen, was not required to send for his wife, Amy Robsart, to join him in London. Elizabeth and Robert were not overly discreet in their enj...
May 02, 2024•54 min•Ep. 58
While Queen Elizabeth I of England famously never married, her close relationship with Robert Dudley began when the two were small children together in the court of Henry VIII. Elizabeth was a princess who was downgraded to a lady after her mother, Anne Boleyn's, death. Robert was the grandson of an advisor to King Henry VII who was executed for treason upon the ascension of Henry VIII, forcing the Dudley family to struggle mightily to rehabilitate its noble image at court. All of which is to sa...
Apr 25, 2024•55 min•Ep. 57
It's a big week for Tortured Poets, so we decided to take a long look at history's most famous one: William Shakespeare himself. Alicia explores the mystery around the true identity of the author of some of the world's most famous pieces of literature. Was it really the actor from Stratford-upon-Avon penning Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and all the sonnets, or was that a convenient pseudonym for someone else, or a group of someone elses? Listen ad-free at patreon.com/tras...
Apr 21, 2024•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 56
As Taylor Swift launches her latest era with The Tortured Poets Department, Alicia dives into her favorite era: Tudor England. We explore the 17 surviving love letters that King Henry VIII penned during his courtship and early relationship with Anne Boleyn in the latter half of the 1520s, particularly noting that for quite a long time, it seems like Anne wasn't really that into him. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 18, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 55
However much 'protocol' may attempt to intervene, the truth is that eccentricity is a trait that even royals have. This is certainly the case for Elisabeth of Wied, a German princess who became Romania's first queen, wife of Romania's King Carol I. Politics in Europe were extra complex in the latter half of the 19th century. In Russia, Tsar Alexander II had concluded his father's Crimean War in 1856, but even with the defeat of Russia in the conflict, the Ottoman Empire was in retreat. As Ottoma...
Apr 11, 2024•43 min•Ep. 54
The fourteenth century was full of challenges to marital bliss, especially for nobles. Travel was complicated, especially during times of war, but royal houses still needed to cement alliances through marriage - often among woefully young princes and princesses who, again, were separated by vast distances and perhaps had never met. So it was for Portugal's young prince Pedro, born 1320. Proxy-married to Constanza Manuel, a Castillian noblewoman, the union was made so Portugal's king, Alfonso IV,...
Apr 02, 2024•39 min•Ep. 53
We touched on England's King George IV in our episode about Queen Victoria's Trashy Hanoverian Uncles (episode 17), but there's so much more to the story of his misspent youth and his cataclysmic marriage to Princess Caroline of Brunswick. To help out, we asked our friend Sam from the podcast I'm Horrified!, who recently delivered this banger of a story over there. The daughter of King George III's eldest sister, Caroline was raised in the German duchy of Braunschweig, or Brunswick in English. H...
Mar 28, 2024•58 min•Ep. 52
This week, we take a look at a different European monarchy, that of Denmark, through two King Frederiks of Denmark. Frederik VII held the throne from 1848 to 1863, and was the last absolute monarch of the country, bowing to calls for reforms and signing Denmark's constitution, which implemented the constitutional monarchy that persists to this day. He was also a terrible husband, was divorced by two wives, and appears to have been part of a throuple with his third wife and their male lover for t...
Mar 21, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 51
After the death of Edwina Mountbatten in 1960, Dickie still had another 19 years of living to do, and while he was single, he was in no way alone. He had romances with plenty of women in his later years, and according to many, he had male lovers - including, it is alleged, boys - as well. A mentor to Prince Charles, his advice to the young man may have contributed to what turned into the tragic marriage, divorce, and untimely death of Princess Diana, who was exactly the sort of woman that Dickie...
Mar 14, 2024•55 min•Ep. 50
As Edwina took pains to lay low in Malta after the scandals of her affairs, Italy decided to exit the League of Nations and invade Ethiopia. To protect their children, she took them to Budapest and installed them in a hotel with their nanny and governess... and then forgot which hotel they were in. For months. As the summer of 1935 turned to fall, and then winter, they just stayed in their hotel until Edwina finally came across the paper she'd written the hotel's name on, tucked into the pocket ...
Mar 07, 2024•52 min•Ep. 49
Programming note: This episode is a bit more explicit than most, including strong language and descriptions of sex. If you listen with wee ones, use your judgment. The early '30s were a roaring time for Edwina's various romances, though two in particular would have far-reaching implications for her lovers. The first, with American actor Paul Robeson, caused scandal in the London tabloids because Robeson was Black. The Royal Family considered the situation dire enough that they demanded that Loui...
Feb 29, 2024•38 min•Ep. 48
