Legacy and Modern Representations

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That's why you rack Flamboyant late nineteenth century aristocrats, Henry Paggetts was certainly no stranger to attention in his own lifetime And now he's the subject of new film Mad Fabulous which was released here in the UK at the start of June. But who was Padget And what did he do to attract so much notice In this episode of the History Axtra podcast, historian and author Michael Hall G guides Charlotte Fospper through the extravagant life of the man who became known as the dancing Marquess Today we're going to be chatting all about the life of Henry Pagget, who has become known as the Dancing Marqucus, but for those who might not have heard of Henry, can you tell me in a nutshell, who was he? He was the fifth Marquess of Anglesy. And he was very rich indeed, because his family, the Paggets probably best remembered now for one of the great heroes of Waterloo somebody who became the first Marquis of Anglessey, who was, I think, I'm not a military historian, but he was by Wellington's side at Waterloo and this famous exchange that he said, Oh, Godsir, I think I've lost my leg and Wellington said, G goodood Godsir, say you have. so he became one legged Marquess. And if you go to Place Nuid, which is their house on Anglesseey, there's a rather good museum about the first Marquess of Anglessey and his military career and you can see his false leg The family were very rich, not because of anything on Anglesy, although they did own copper mines there. It was because they owned very large estates in Staffordshire which gave a lot of money through coal mine and other industries there So they were super rich, aristocratic family ir sort of historic seat was on Anglessea, but they also major properties in England So Henry, part of this very wealthy aristocratic family, we're going to be talking about his story today So Henry was born on the sixteenth of june, eighteen seventy five But right from the off, his life was the subject of some intrigue, wasn't it? It was, I mean, there were lots of rumourors about his paternity. He was born in France, though he was largely brought up in England And the rumour was that his father was not actually the fourth Marquis of Anglesy, but was an actor famous, French actor called Benoir Constant Cquolin And this seems to be a bit of a muddle. The Marquis' mother, the fifth Marquis's mother, was a woman called Blanche Boyd, who died when he was very, very young And very much later in eighteen ninety one, long after the Marquis was born, his mother's surviving sister married Kochonan's brother. So there was a sort of family relationship by marriage The idea that Copland the famous actor was his father is completely ludicrous, I think, completely untrue. And there's never any suggestion that the fourth Marquis thought that Henry Patrick wasn't his son. Okay, so there's no evidence to substantiate that rumour No. But as you mentioned, he was born in France. Is that where he initially encountnered this kind of theatrical culture which later came to play such a big role in his life. As far as anyone knows, and it does seem an irresistible link that there was obviously this family friendship and later relationship by marriage to one of wh is famous They were actors in France and He would have been taken to the theatre, I'm sure, and I think he was aware of that theatrical ambience. It's very hard to see where it comes from otherwise. And although he was born in France, you're quite right, and that was always rather held against him because it was thought when people looked at his later life and thought he seemed rather unennglish in so many ways, they thought, well, the fact he was born and educated in France must explain an awful lot. and that's sort of usual English feeling of superiority to the French, pererhaps that goes back the Battle Waterloo which it just occur to But he really had rather conventional. He went to preparatory school in England, he went to Eton He had a sort of brief one of those honorary military careers. He was made an officer in a smart regiment. He never sww any action or anything like that And he did what was expected of him, which when he was twenty one, he got married to a famously rather attractive, lively woman called Lyian Chettwind, who was his first cousin. She was the daughter of his mother's sister. Okay, so then through the eighteen eighties into the eighteen nineties, he's had this quite traditional upbringing comes back to England When did he start to develop this theatrical, extravagant persona and style? As far as we know when he inherited, because suddenly who had access to a lot of money I mean, what his financial circumstances were before that isn't known I mean, one fact that struck me when one was looking at the obituaries One of them records that he had taken out very large mortgages on his life interest. and just to explain that, because there is quite a lot of confusion about this. The way that all aristocratic families worked basically, there was a certain amount of the inheritance, which is usually the houses, the lands, usually important works of art that had to pass from generation to generation as heirlooms. and the person who had the lifetime use of them couldn't sell them or get rid of them But because the family had all this wealth from minerals, there was large income, Anual income, which he did have. And that was said to be, in modern termes absolute millions. But the fact that he had already taken up really substantial mortgages on what was called his life interest, which was this income suggests to me that he already was heavily in debt, but why he should have been in debt? I don't know Okay, so prior to the time when he inherits the title, he's clearly spending some money. Yes. And what sort of things might he have been spending money on? Could we speculate? Well, I would imagine clothes and jewels and all the things that we know that he liked I don't know if any great evidence he's particularly keen on gambling. he dies in Monte Carlo and he does go there quite regularly. but nobody actually says, o he threw away money on the gaming tables, which was very common. A aristratic way to lose a lot of money very quickly. So if he was spending money on basically wardrobe, jewels, costumes, was he presenting like that in public through his teens into his early twenties Not so far as we know. after he died, mean most of thebiturers were very hostile to him. They thought he was a ridiculous figure who was a sort of wasterew who run through a family fortune on doing completely ridiculous things somebody whose old preparatory school headmaster wrote a letter to the papers. he wanted to stand up for him and say as a boy, he was more effeminate than the other boys liked, but he was popular because he's very generous, he obready had money And he's very polite and kind. Yeah, I mean, it's important to remember that as much as we've got this image of him in like dazzling costumes, that there's obviously a person behind this image. and that's something we're going to hopefully talk about a little bit today So he was the subject of intrigue a little bit in his early life, as rumors speculating about his biological father Do we have any sense of how Henry might have felt about this? Did he feel othered growing up? You mentioned that he was popular? No. And I think we have to come down to the basic fact which is so common for anyone studying queer figures in the past, which is lack of evidence we know it's pretty certain that After his death, and he died young, he was only twenty nine when he died. So it's a short life His family, probably not the next Marcus, but the next Mar was his mother destroyed any papers that she could find at Place Nid, and nothing has come to light. And if it weren't for the fact that he was in his own right, a minor celebrity really and was covered very widely in all the newspapers and stories about him were told and retold we would know very little about him. And in fact, one of the things that's made it easier to write about him and certainly it made it easier for me to write my chapter about onpllasnoid, which is about the dancing markers. is the digitization of Victorian and twentieth century newspapers. So it's now very easy to search for references to him because you just look up Markcus Anngly and it comes up. And there are dozens and dozens and dozens of references to him. People were very intrigued by him, but that is really the only source. So we don't have anything really from his perspective to understand how he felt. No. And so what were these Victorian sources saying about him, once he's inherited the title, he starts being able to wear these costumes and outfits publicly I think one important point to make is that in a way that's now rather forgotten is that the aristocracy in a way were the celebrity culture of the time. It was the age of from the eighteen nineties al illustrated newspapers, newspapers began publishing. photographs quite late around about the early eighteen nineties And they all had social columns and there was great interest in the royal family as there is now. but Aristocrats in a way that now they've slightly faded, I think. They're not on a level with really television or film celebrivities by any means Whereas in the eighteen ninetos and the nineteen ten s. they were celebrities. So people were very interested in him already And he was actually in New York when his father died and arrives in Liverpool, the ship docks and he gets off. and of course here is the new Lord Anglesy. Everyone's very interested in him. And he has with him his favorite French B bulldog. And then one of the customs officers said, C we see your license for importing your dog? He hadn't got one So he was taken to court and fined twenty pounds and this gets into all the papers and from then on It's slightly unstoppable But Then there was a big scandal. I was putting it too strongly, but it' what thing they' got the paper's absolute frenzy that he was staying in a hotel in London and went out to the theatre and one of his valets, he always travelled with three valets, it was said, as well as his own hairdresser St large bag of jewels and made off with them. And so when the Marqucus came back, they called the police and the police set off in pursuit of them. They did actually catch the valet who was escaping to France, but they caught him as he was boarding the ferry at Dover. disguised by a false mustoustache and so he was convicted and went to prison for five years, I think, or something like that When the press found out that the play that the Marquis had gone off to seea while all this was going on was a play about Sherlock Holmes. Of course the whole story became absolutely irresistible. And so people said, whyy didn't he think he should have locked up his jewels before going to see a play about the G Detective. One really sparky journalist had the idea of getting in touch with Arthur Conan Doyle and say, what would Sherlock Holmes have done? Well, Colan Doyle was rather taken aback by this that said what did you lose? watch you lose Thousands of pounds worth of jewels. I didn't know that any man had so many jewels to lose. So allready this idea that there was something slightly not quite conventionally masculine about him was coming out. It was also the first real age of celebrity interviews. and so he was interviewed in his hotel room by people in the press. and it describes that me sitting there And very tellingly, it says that the room he is completely surrounded by photographs of himself in very expensive frames. Well, that's rather a clue as to his personality, I think. Yeah, I think that definitely indicates something, doesn't it? And it's important to pull out that something actually, because we're talking here about queer history. But what do we mean by that? Well, queer ob in a sense is a modern term. I mean queer is a description for people who break with conventions about sexual orientation or gender is a word that goes back quite a long way. It tended to be an abusive term, of course And many gay men still find the term slightly problematic because nobody likes being described as a queer, for instance But historians have taken it up and people who write about sexuality in the past, I would include myself in that find it a useful term because in the past people didn't describe themselves as gay or bisexual or trans We look into the past and we can see that there were people who clearly did break with norms in those sorts of areas How should they be described? Well, the idealists used the terms that they themselves would have used. For some women, calling them lesbians is fine, because lesbianans is a term that goes back to the eighteenth century, and women in the twentieth century call themselves lesbian or saappist thenen it's tended to be a bit more complicated And one advantage of the term queer is that I think it keeps all the possibilities open. You're not actually committing yourself to saying this person was gay, this person was bisexual, this person was trans. I also think as a historian, it's a very useful term because it's clearly anachronistic And so it carries within itself a reminder of the distance between the past and the present This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling? Smart move Another smart move getting help from one of state Farm's nineteen thousand local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling, J another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state This episode is brought to you by Fox One Watch all one hundred and four matches of the FIFA World Cup live in four K for just nineteen ninety nine cents a month, with three days free Build your own multi view, choose up to three streams, and follow player spotlights. Stay on top of every moment with live stats, highlights, and instant replays. The FIFA World Cup, streaming live on Fox One, offers a subject to change seefox. com for complete terms and conditions We don't necessarily know about Hagget sexuality, do we? Beuse he was married he' got married in eighteen ninety eight? Yes. What was his relationship like with Lillian? Wellill, it was obviously rather troubled. She sued him for divorce in nineteen oh two, I think. so they hadn't been married very long four years or something like that And it was widely rumored. and I think it probably is the case that the grounds for divorce was non consummation. I mean they'd never had sex But then rather mysteriously, although she gets the decree and she point out that all legal cases to do with divorce were behind closed doors, so there was no public record of what was said. so far as I'm aware, everybody is tracked down any authoritative statements but what was said in court But then a couple of years later, she goes back and gets the decree rescinded and they have what is in effect And I'm not a sort of expert on family law in the Edwardian period, but it seems to be some sort of agreed separation in which she obviously gets money, I think. But they remain married So that's absightly mysterious. and nobody's ever quite got to the bottom of that. We know A bit about her because she actually lived a long time, She didn't die until nineteen sixty two. And we know from her grandson, Christopher Simon Sykes, historian, who in about ninety two, I think published a book called Black Sheep, which is about aristocratic children who went off the rails, has a whole chapter on the dancing work because in a way, the most authoritative thing that was published about him for a very long time And he is able to record what obviously were family stories about this marriage. And the story he tells, which everybody retells, is that they went to Paris for their honeymoon and he took her to all the most expensive jewelers bought. thousands of jewels and he'd given her a lot of jewelry as a wedding present which was recorded in all the newspapers And then when they got back to their hotel room, he made her take all her clothes off, put on all the jewels and lie in bed was it, Nothing else happened. This was a story that was passed down through the family. so I think there is probably some truth in it. But we don't know much about her other than that. So they potentially had, well they did have some kind of relationship, but not necessarily sexual one, we're pretty sure Do you think that constitutes us describing him as a queer historical figure? I think say because his sexuality is a mystery, his sense of his own gender identity is a mystery, we just don't know. because there are no letters by him, there are no statements by him on those subjects. There's no evidence that he had sexual relationships with anybody So queer is just an incredibly useful term for describing him because it's a term that avoids putting labels on him. One thing that absolutely everybody he wrote about him was united in saying was that he was extraordinarily feminate I mean standards of masculine behaviour were different from what they are now, his The desire to perform in public on the theatre was and not unual. There was quite a long tradition of aristocratic men going on the stage. I actually sort looks this up and there were other aristocratic men who had quite successful careers as actors and things like that. It wasn't wholly unusual by any means He did it in a rather extreme way. What kinds of performances was he doing? Did this start once he'd inherited the title? Yes, it seems to start pretty quickly. It's an old house, but it was done up in the eighteenth century in a sort of gotothic revival style. It has this very beautiful setting just overlooking the Meni straight towards Sndonia and it had a family chapel which was on the first floor with very beautiful gotic plaster vault. and I found evidence it was already being used as a theatre in some way, because country house theatricals were a quite common thing. I mean, peopleeople went off to their country houses for the whole summer. they wanted things to do and say charirades and tableau viva, little plays and so on. If you think of Jane Austen and Manfield Park, that's all about people in a country house putting on a play So the chapel does seem to have doubled to some sort of performance space of a rather modest sort, and he did it up to the ninth. He converted it into a theatre called the Gaiety Theatre, and there were good photographs and watercolours of it. It was pretty sumptuous, hung with hangings and curtains in a beautiful peacock blue, embroidered or woven with sunflowers, rather aesthetic movement, turn of the century and he began to stage were fairly conventional ideas for countountry house performances, little plays, little Pantomimes and things like that who they key on pantomimes, Aladdin and other things And unusually, it wasn't just for his sort of family and immediate friends. He started selling tickets and inviting people for Banger, who the nearest big town to come and watch it. And then he ramped it up from there and started hiring professional actors. And then towards the end of his life, he developed really what was a semi professional acting Tp. and he took them on tour in plays by Oscar Wilde and others like that. That was highly unusual and very expensive thing to do. So he paid for all the costumes, he paid for sets, he paid the actors He paid for them to be transported by special train to theaters and so on and Mr Hall, ed everything himself because everything was designed to have a st apart for Lord Anglethy. Wow, Okaykay, so he was sent to stage in these performances. Very much How were people reacting to these performances? You mentioned there that one of the plays that was performed was an Oscar Wilde play? Yes. How did that go down? Very well, an ideal husband. Be it was after Wilde's trial and disgrace. and this seems now incredibly hypocritical But his plays carried on being performed because they were big sellers People just took his name off the programs and the posters So if you read the reviews of Lord Anglesy in an ideal husband, they don't mention Oscar Wild, but they praise him. They say he's surprisingly, he's actually rather good actor. But the only evidence of all this is he was very very keen on being photographed. As I mentioned, that journalist who interviewed him after the theft of the jewels saw that It was unusual. I mean, it was an age in which people did get photographed a lot He got himself photographed in all his costumes and so on, but he gave them to the press. It is very early celebrity culture. And so you look at the Iillustror papers and they all reproduce the same photographs of him because he was supplying them. If these photographs haven't survived and they survive in large numbers, I think he would be almost totally forgotten because there are no other sources for him. But the photographs are compelling. I mean, he loved posing clearly. This has led to a certain number of misunderstandings. I have to say, all the photographs of him show him either in fancy dress, some of which were recorded because of his birthdays, he had fancy dress parts, and we can tie together those photographs to some of those recorded partterers Most of what he was photographed in are theatrical costumes for Aladdin and things like that And they are very, very striking. And obviously people have looked at this and they are extremely gender bending. I mean everyone always says they looked like Freddie Mercury because he was very tall and thin and had this sort of slightly droopy mouache, like a lot of Edwardians, wearing these flowing, rather feminine garments. I mean there is no other word for but gender bending. but he didn't go around like that in public. That's something that is quite misunderstood No. So far as we know was he a cross dresser, he didn't dress up in women's clothes. I mean some of the clothes might have been interpreted as being female costumes But they were within a theatrical setting an ambiance. It's important to understand those in context then isn't it? becausecause I think often those images of him and this name, the Dancing Marquress, gets taken out of context a little bit Where did he earn that nickname though? Was there a particular moment or a particular play? There was yes, it was actually quite early on because the pantimimes he had these And I think again, it wasn't that unusual. Pantimines on the public stage often had dancing intervals with ballet dancces doing things and so on. And he did what he called the butterfly dance where he wore sort of transparent wings. He held sticks and had these sort of transparent wings and these flowing costume and elaborate headdresses. And he did a sort of swooping dance around the stage while the lights changed colour And even in Wales, people knew what the source of that was. They said, Ohh he dances All la Li Fulla And Loi Fuller, if anyone's interested in the history of dance is a big name because she was one of the pioneers of modern dance and she developed this form of dancing at the Gaete Cert which was well known for the Gaete girls and for dancing. And then she had a career of her own doing this in both England and France, she's a very interesting woman. and the Darcy Muckers must have seen some of these performances. I mean that's where he gets it from completely. And it's not an accident, I think, therefore, that he calls his theatre at Pasnoid, the Gaete Theatre. So by the time he'd inherited the title, he was able to fund and wear incredible costumes and outfits How was that understood by society, do you think? I think they thought it was highly unusual in the sense that pretty well universally, he's described as being effeminate And the fact that he was so interested in clothes and that he accumulated this very large collection of jewels was thought to be extraordinary. the fact he' be so interested in clothes and jewels was very So people are puzzled and intrigued and amused by that. and it comes quickly very, very exaggerated. mean The Bx himself had to say sometimes when there were all these descriptions of him on stage in costumes and everyone always says his costumes sewn with the most valuable diamonds and rubies and emeralds. Well, he could be a fool, but he wasn't a total idiot And he said, of course they're not real. they're all paced. But because the idea that he was uniquely extravagant has so taken hold, nobody actually believed him, I don't think The Edwardians loved dressing up, and they loved fancy dress parts. so it wasn't that unusual even though he did obviously look, very feminine. But there are lots of photographs of him dressed as male characters, where he's wearing relatively normal costumes. of course those don't get reproduced, because they're lot so excited. Were people using these photographs at the time to speculate about his sexuality? Well, I think the gender bending notion was very attractive And the idea that he was transfestite, that is dressed in women's clothes is part of gender identity actually goes back quite a long way because He' had an active social life. sothern degree in Paris about which of far as I probably well nothing is known. But then he did tour with plays on the continent and also he was with all the newspapers And anyone who's interested in the history of ideas about sexuality would have heard of Magnus Hirschfeldt who set up a very famous center for the study of sexuality in Berlin. And he was publishing books on aspects of human sexuality During Mx's lifetime He thought that the Mcus must be gay, homosexual and He was a great defender. I mean, he believed that gay men were they were made and therefore, legal penalties against male homosexuality were wrong. Part of the arguments he put forward for that were that homosexuality was found in all parts of society. and the Marqu' Fangacy was his idea of this There's no evidence that the Marqucus of Anglesy ever went to bed with men or that he was particularly attracted to men, not that I'm aware of. But then Magus Hchbacht returned to him later in the book which gives us the term Tanvestite where it comes from, It's book in German. and it holds him up as an example of trans festicism. So that's where the idea that the Marquis dressed up in women's clothes comes from. It's not quite accurate, I think So the idea that he was transferser actually has quite long roots, but people pick that up when photographs of things started being reproduced. So did that kind of attention impact his marriage. Do we know at this stage what his relationship was like? Absolutely no idea. His wife didn't participate in any of this so far as is known. I don't think it's ever recorded that she attended the play so it wouldd be surprising if she didn't, but I don't know of any evidence. Although he goes on tours and things like that, his social life is very confined to Anglesy There aren't members of the Welsh aristocracy coming to these. absolutely not. I think they all kept them at arm's length So he seems to live in his own little bubble, really, which he has his family and he has his tenants and He was always said be popular with his tenants and it was a period when With increasing Welsh nationalism, Orlando was often regarded as English people extracting money from the Welsh and so on But he seems to have escaped that. and he did make efforts to learn Wels. and he was always said to be popular with his tenants. because I think partular because he was just very good at parties and they were usually invited and they loved coming to the plays. and also he was spending money like water So in that sense, if you were a local tradesman, if you runan a shopping banger, I mean you were quitting? Yeah, I mean, how brilliant to get invited into the local aristocrat's house. How brilliant. You mentioned there though that he was spending a lot of money. The title he'd inherited did obviously allow him to have access to a lot of funds. But what was his financial situation like as we moved through the nineties. There is evidence that he was already quite heavily in debt. He'd mortgag his life interests So therefore, his income wasn't entirely his because he had to service the debts His spend on income was never as large, almost certainly as people said. I think it was said Did he inherit an income of one hundred and twelve thousand a year, which is by more than thousands billions and billions of pounds He spent a lot of money on jewels and costumes. and mean, all his clothes were made by aly top Paris cuturios And we ne some of them survive So the money was going there. And then when he decided, take his practicality more seriously and set up his own travelling company, which went to Europe as well as around England. I mean As everyone knows if you stage play in the West endnd it's a quick way to lose shed loads of money, and I think it was just the same for him. Also, it was always said and I see no reason to doubt it, that he didn't keep any profits for himself, that they all went to charity. So by this stage, he is spending a huge amount of money on jewellry, clothes, costumes And in nineteen oh four, he was declared bankrupt, wasn't he? What happened at that stage? Well, he couldn't service his debts because he had too many people asking for payment for jewels, costumes, whver it might be So bankruptcy was the only way out. so trustees in bankruptcy were appointed. And of course, the fact that he was an aristocrat meant that was all quite well managed because obviously there already were trustees of his life interest. So there were people on hand who could quickly take control of the estate. So he was deprived really of any control over his income. and everything that he owned, which could be sold was sold to pay his debts. They couldn't touch any of the things which were the heirlooms. So they couldn't sell any houses that he owned, they couldn't sell any land. nor could they sell things like family portraits, which were all entailed to his heir. He did have things which he could sell s for instance, had never were not covered by what's called the Eail, which basically means the things which can't be sold because they have to be passed through generations. So the big sales of books was mostly selled with his jewels and his clothes. And that was s of like fourteen days of sales. and it all happened at Place Noid, which he'd renamed Anglesy Castle, by the way. And that of course had pressed just an absolute field day day after day after day accounts appeared in the newspapers of the sales and it seems to us now, rather homophobic in a way, because all these local auctioneers, they all paded around in his costumes and things like that. But things fetched high prices, which I think was a mark of their quality, because if you have whatever it was, dozens and dozens of waistcoats and thousands of overcoats and suits, you didn't get a chance to wear them very much. So think everything was in very good condition All made by top makers. so he had to retire. He hadd give up pl night. he couldn't afford carry on living there and he moved to France to a rather sort of fashionational resort and lived in a hotel and carried on giving interviews to the press. Of course, you never know with press reports whether you really are hearing his own voice, but it sounds like you are. And he always begins by saying I apologize for the hurt and I'm not wearing a tiara of emeralds and I'm not swathed in diamonds and so on. and they always say, but I actually prefer to wear Scottish tweed So obviously in a way, these interviews were designed to prove his public image, but I think there is some The truth in the fact he didn't go round dressed like that all the time And people said that. They said, you know, if you expect to see him dressed in sort of purple robes and wearing earrings, necklaces and so on, you will be disappointed. So that's why he required France to live modestly because his trustees would have made sure he had some income. He wasn't pennulous by any means, but he didn't have a lot of money in comparison to what he had. But of course he dies young, so A lot of them went unpaid, I'm afraid and it was very, very serious consequences for some of the people to whom he owed money, because I think it has to be said that he was like a lot of his Edwarding contemporaries, he was somewhat indifferent to the poor little people, to whom he owed money. And he said to one of the people Wartzkys, to whom he owed a lot of money to the jewelers who were still around of course and they were constantly pressing him for payment And he said, what he did at the end of every month, he threw all the bills into his hat and picked out three and would pay those So that's not a really very admirable way to treat people to whom you owe money, it has to be said. No, it's not, is an I mean, quite a lavish way of selecting which bills you're going to repay. Definitely. So it wasn't long after his bankruptcy then that he did pass away. Do we know in what circumstance did he die? Do we know who was with him when he died His mother and his aunt, that was said, he died in the hotel where he'd been staying. It was lung disease as I've said, As far as I'm aware, there's no hard evidence that he had tuberculis, I think other people would have mentioned that and he would have been ill for much longer. He probably had weak lungs in some way. Was his wife there? he died as well. Okay. I think she accompanied his body back to Anglesy for burial. Okay, so that does suggest again that there was some sort of positive relationship between them that she was there. Yes, I mean, everyone says including the preparatory schoolch headmaster, was rather lovable about him and he was nice and polite. and the victas were universally hostile Okay. some of them look for explanations fact his mother had died when he was young. He was brought up in France. that was very dodgy. You know they couldn't get r the fact he was the son of a bar of, he' been to Eton and all the rest of it. Didn't seem any particular reason why he should have behavave like that. So people rather struggle to explain him, I think But after that, total silence I mean, as I've said, people who have tried to research him have discovered there are no family papers at all So there was a very, very thorough clearing out. And the title was inherited by the sixth Marquth, who was young man who's dead in the army But I write about that. I mean the sixth Mquis himself was bisexual, had an affair with his it wasn't completely to a plane sailing, but the fifth mark was somehow expunged from the memory. The theatre was dismantled. everyone said it was converted back into a chapel, The S boox's children remembered it as being their school room. So I'm not sure. And then in the nineteen thirties Because they carried on being quite rich, they remodeled that whole wing of the house and what had been the theatre was converted into bedrooms. and I think C'bright think pretty well nothing of it survives So in that sense, he was rather white from memory. So all that survived was these photographs. which I don't think they completely got rid of. I've heard various accounts what happened that they were hung in guest bedrooms or stairs or something like that. But it was only when the house was acquired by the National Trust, was given to the national Trust A thenmark was Van Glsy, Henry Paggett, who d recently, who was a very very famous military historian and carried on living at Plasenoyid despite it being a national trust house He did a lot to create this museum to the first Marqucus, the hero of Waterloo But he thought there should be more about the later history of his family. And so he'd always been amused by these photographs. so he hung them in the family museum. I had thought Did he quite know what he was doing? But somebody who didn't know who knew him very well, siting me off my book came out and said, o no, he definitely knew what he was doing. He wanted to attract attention. And people then got very curious, who is this person? And it's from that little seed that his modern reputation has grown. and it's entirely based around these photographs. More recently, the idea that he might have been trance has become intriguing for people But again, he doesn't seem to have presented himself as a woman ever. Henry Pagett's leegacy is an ongoing conversation. Very recently, the film Mad Fabulous was released, which tells a story of Henry's life Do you think that film is an accurate representation of Henory Well, they had the difficulty, of course, of creating a narrative where the sources are So very limited And what they do get right is the clothes. I think the clothes are absolutely wonderful And the costume designer deserves to do every Oscar going, I would have thought But they have to fill out the story a bit and Without going to details, one of the things they do is they make his father live much longer than he really did as though they were living at the same time and idea that there's of hostility between them. and so that the dancing Marquitits, although of course can't call him that. they have to say it kind of a frightful pickle about his titles. is somehow rebelling against what a modern historian would call heteronormativity of Edwardian society. Well, that's not true because by the time the dancing M moquus moved to Anglesy, his father was dead. so he just lived his own life there And they do say, I think rather admirably that you know his extravagance did have serious consequences for tradesmen on Anglesy. But improbably, I rather think all the trace moies doesn't matter. we love him. so we don't care the fact know we've lost a lot ofoney. So it's slightly rose tinted in view of him, I think, but it's fair enough that that's their take on him. And where does that film sit in terms of the labeling that we've been speaking about? Did they present him with a particular label? I think they rather hedge their bets. His first appearance, he sort of rode up the Menai Strait to Englesy and he's wearing a woman's dress Well, he never did that. So you immediately think that he's a cross dresser and you're never sort of disaused of that in the film. Al say they hint He's having a gay relationship with one of the men in his theatrical troupe, but they sort of pull back from saying that anything really was going on. So these things were sort raised but not really resolved. but one can understand why because they're having to build up of him with limited evidence. They also make much of his wife who's there all the way through the film. whereereas I think for much of his life the relationship was a bit more distant. they would say, but they're quite right to speculate. mayaybe it was closer than one realises. How do you think we should be remembering him? Like you say, this film raises some important points, but the evidence is a bit inconclusive, so it's hard to draw a clear judgment. What do you think we should be thinking of when we think of the Dancing Marqucus? I think he shows what it was possible to do in going against society's norms at a time when those norms were pretty strong in terms of appropriate behavior for men and particularly men of his class, that you could sort of get away with murder, which is in a way rather enchancing and rather admirable. And he was so much his own personal. And he lived the life he wanted to live, and he was able to do so because he was immensely rich And he did it in this wonderfully full blooded way. But on the other hand, you know, he paid a heavy penalty for it. I mean, he obviously was hopeless with money. so bankruptcy was his own fault, I think it can be said But he did have to undergo this disgrace, this scandal, this sort of humiliation of the sales and things like that So he did pay quite a heavy price. Yeah, I think that's an interesting paradox, isn't it? that the wealth and title that he had did in some sense facilitate his ability to express himself, but it also attracted a lot of attention and brought kind of scandal that others might not have experienced had they not been an aristocrat. Yes, I agree And finally then, what does his experience teach us about? quQeer lives, queer experiences in the late nineteenth and into the early twentieth century. I think the fact that he was o a boy in the eighteen nineties, the eighteen nineties is a period where you can see modern ideas particularly about male homosexuality. coming into focus. I mean it's largely the wild trials. It's not only the wild trials, but that's obviously what dominates our understandings of the period. and I think it's clearly dominated understanding at the time, because I said he toured in an Oscar Wild play, but Oscar Wildld's name was never mentioned So it was a period in which lots of norms were being questioned, but also there was a lot of pushback. against people who seem to be doing it It was limited in terms of what you could say. I mean, nobody suggests in the public in the press that he might have been ay or anything like that. There's no hint of that at all. I think people are very, very careful to do so. It's always struck me very odd that nobody mentions a picture of Dorian Greay in connection with him. because of course Dorian Gray himself extraagant costumes and jewels. I think people kept away from it because it was a very, very sensitive. subject, but it is a period in which suddenly the bounds of what you could do are being loosened undoubtedly. So yes, I think it tells a lot about a new fluidity in ideas about gender and sexuality that are rooted in the eighteen nineties, I think, which at the time Ironically, the national Trust is created at the basis of my book and it's interesting for me that Pastinoid is now owned by the National Trust and the House's queer history certainly doesn't end there. Absolutely. And that is actually something that we've spoken about in a different podcast episode where we spoke about Michael's book A quQeer inheritance. In that episode, we chatted all about the queer lives connected to the National Trust. and if you'd like to give that one a listen, the episode is called Untold LGBTQ stories of the National Trust I'll pop a link to that in the description below. You can listen to that episode A free on the History Extra app or wherever you get your podcasts Thank you very much for talking to us today about Henry's life. It's been incredibly interesting. Thank you. Thank you That was Michael Hall, speaking to Charlotte Fosper. Michael is the former architecture editor of Country Life Magazine and the author of several books. His latest work is AQeer Inheritance, Alternative Histories of the National Trust, which reveals the queer lives connected to the trust and its properties