King James I\u2019s <\/a>\u201cmany important love affairs\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\nAlongside Lord Philip Herbert,\u00a0he named Robert Carr, the Earl of Somerset, and George Villiers, the 1st Duke of Buckingham, among the King\u2019s lovers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThese were very open secrets,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some of the earliest \u201cfully surviving erotic and romantic same-sex letters from royalty\u201d exists because of these relationships, Russell explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are letters in which the Duke of Buckingham says he cannot wait to feel the King\u2019s thighs in his arms again. There\u2019s one where the King says that he\u2019d rather live banished without his throne, if that meant keeping George at his side, than live a widow\u2019s life without him.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kensington Palace\u00a0<\/p>\n
James\u2019 granddaughter, Queen Anne, who reigned from 1702 to 1714, was considered by many a lesbian.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe difficulty we encounter with lesbian intimacy across history is that it wasn\u2019t subjected to moral panic campaign in the same way as male homosexuality.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYet it\u2019s very clear that there seems to have been a triangle of love between Queen Anne, the Duchess of Marlborough and Lady Masham,\u201d a love which Russell shared went on to inspire 2018\u2019s The Favourite.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s in Kensington Palace that you get a sense of the world in which these three women lived and competed for affection,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"View](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Kensington-.jpeg\")
View of Kensington Palace, London. England, 17th-18th century. (DeAgostini\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The Tower of London\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a gay blackmailing scandal that ends in murder. A diplomat called Thomas Overbury, who went to Oxford, and you would know it, because he would make sure you knew it. He was a man of great intelligence and even bigger ambition.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was romantically involved with a Scottish coordinator called Robert Carr, who later caught the eye of King James I. Thomas hoped to use this to climb his way up the greasy pole of politics.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe eventually overreached himself and tried to blackmail Robert with details of his intimacy with the King,\u201d Russell explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Tower-of-London-.jpeg\")
The Tower of London in London, United Kingdom. (Steve Christo \u2013 Corbis\/Corbis\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
According to the historian, James\u2019 jealously overcame him, and he sent Thomas to the Tower of London for allegedly \u201cdisobeying a royal command\u201d. However, Russell noted that \u201cpeople suspected it was a wounded heart\u201d that prompted the decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Russell continued: \u201cThomas died in the tower in his thirties. He had been very sick for some time, while Robert entered into a political marriage with a very grand lady of court, Francis Howard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was the only person who had shown kindness to Thomas during the blackmailing scandal, but she\u2019d in fact sent him poisoned treats and blackmailed the doctors into administering poison in his enemas while he was ill. She feared he would use the scandal to destroy her and her husband\u2019s position.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of their servants eventually revealed what had occurred, and it resulted in one of the biggest court scandals of the 17th century.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Russell revealed that around the time of Thomas\u2019 death, poems began circulating about how he had been poisoned.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe joke in London was: we dare not say how Overbury died, expect that he was poisoned from every side.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Reflecting on the importance of telling queer stories from the past, Russel said: \u201cYou get to make them as dysfunctional as heterosexual ones, and you get to make them as important as, say,\u00a0Henry the VII and Anne Boleyn.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hillsborough Castle\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was at Hillsborough Castle in the 1980s that the Late Queen Mother, Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon spent a great deal of time, Russell shared.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"1942:](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Queen-.jpeg\")
1942: Queen Elizabeth (1900 \u2013 2002), formerly Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, wife of King George VI and mother of Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, London.(Hulton Archive\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo of the people who often accompanied her were long standing servants, William Tallon and Reginald Wilcock.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth of them were gay, and they joined her household when homosexuality was still illegal. She had understood what was happening because William and Reg fell in love with each other. They both worked for her for half a century and they frequently travelled with her to Hillsborough.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 1967, when homosexuality was decriminalised, a right-wing political went to see the Queen Mother and urged her to send a moral message to the nation by dismissing any homosexuals on her staff.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Russell continued: \u201cShe replied, \u2018Well, there\u2019s so many of them, and if I did that, I\u2019d have to go self-service.<\/p>\n
\u201cWilliam, who was nicknamed \u2018Backstairs Billy\u2019, and Reg, would sometimes\u00a0argue, and on one occasion they forgot to bring the Queen Mother her evening drink. She was heard calling down the corridor: \u2019When you find a moment, could one of you old queens fetch this old queen her drink?\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kew\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lord Hervey also helped shape LGBTQ+ history while moving between Kensington Palace, Hampton Court and Kew.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hervey was bisexual and was \u201cdescribed as the best dinner party guest you could hope for\u201d, Russell said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had a scorching repertoire of put downs. He wrote of a countess who thought every mirror was paying her a compliment, but did not realise that nobody else was.<\/p>\n
\u201cInterestingly, he had eight children with his wife, Mary Lepell, and was best friends with our first prime minister, Robert Walpole.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were also rumours that he was close friends with Queen Caroline, that he had a fling with her son, Frederick, Prince of Wales, and that the two of them may have been in a three-way relationship with a lady of court.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"England,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Kew-.jpeg\")
England, London, Richmond, Kew Gardens, Kew Palace. (Dukas\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
However, Russell said the greatest love affair of Hervey\u2019s life was with a member of parliament called Stephen Fox, who was his lover from 1726 to 1736.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Together, Russell explained, the pair brought a house in London\u2019s Great Burlington Street, and Fox would often visit Hervey at Hampton Court and Kensington Palace.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In one love letter, Stephen reminisced on a \u201clove bite\u201d on his left thigh, which he wrote he would \u201cpress to remember him\u201d.\u00a0Russell referred to their relationship as \u201cjoyful\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He concluded that many queer stories in history may not have been celebrated, despite evidence of their existence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He added that histories like those he has shared show the world \u201chow incredibly far things have come in a short period of time\u201d.<\/p>\n
Do you know a teacher \u201cas inspiring as the history they are teaching\u201d? If so, the Historic Royal Palaces\u2019 Inspiring History Teaching Awards\u00a0are open until 25 January for entries at hrp.org.uk\/teachingawards<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queer history is often overlooked, but one historian is determined to ensure it\u2019s remembered just as well as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[881,48211,9,24,63,122,124,123,48212],"class_list":["post-106465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-history","tag-king-james","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-queer-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Gareth-Russell-Headshot-Jake-Douglas-.jpg\")
Historian and author Gareth Russell. (Jake Douglas) <\/p>\n![\"Red](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Hampton-C-.jpeg\")
Red poppy meadow and driveway leading to the Great Gatehouse main entrance on the West Front of Hampton Court Palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. England, UK. (Chris Harris\/UCG\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)<\/p>\n