daily dose of historic gays @baronvonstuben - Tumblr Blog

puppet master

shipping those two historical figures is NOT rpf. the historical evidence of their gay sex is REAL n its OUT THERE we just havent found it yet!!!!!

mermaidsfearme

Hamilton is not the only freak in this relationship.

giogio15-bananero

"I have still a part for the public and another for you"

Always makes my day remember the cute pet names they had for each other.

(These images are part from another thing I'm doing that I wish show you soon :).

jhoca

Now that you’ve drawn Kinloch, would you consider some Laureloch content? I just love ur style and art so much!!!

Yes, I would be interested! I'm still learning about Kinloch, so probably not right away. I'd feel more comfortable drawing laureloch when I know more about Kinloch, like his personality and in this case, their relationship (how he treated Laurens).

I know they were friends, and that they had opposing views, despite having very similar backgrounds (both from prosperous, rich families from South Carolina, Southern elite, educated in Europe). I have a vague understanding of their friendship, but let me know if you have specific anecdotes :)

my-deer-friend

There is unfortunately not much that we know about their in-person interactions, but we can glean a little about it from their letters. Considering John wrote to Francis at almost the first opportunity he had after leaving Geneva, and that his letters were sentimental and full of repeated professions of affection, they must have become close very quickly. Here are some tidbits that may inspire you?

Laurens had been living in Geneva for about two years before Kinloch arrived, so he was likely responsible for introducing Kinloch to his acquaintances and showing him around the city.

Laurens and Kinloch spent a lot of time conversing together, either in company or alone. It was common to Political debates definitely came up, as well as gossip about their fellow South Carolinians. They also talked about their future plans.

It's not inconceivable that they took lessons from the same tutor together – dancing, drawing, philosophy or language, perhaps?

The young men who lived in Geneva often took trips into the surrounding countryside, visiting the glaciers, the salt flats, and neighbouring towns. Perhaps they took a little overnight trip together?

my-deer-friend

Oops, that incomplete line above was meant to read, "It was common to call on friends in the afternoons, and visit acquaintances for dinner." (The former possibly being more intimate/one-on-one and the latter more social and rowdy – but not necessarily.)

@john-laurens can correct me, but I don't think there are any extant Kinloch letters from the earlier part of his stay in Geneva. That said... since Laurens closes his very first letter (23 August 1774) to Kinloch with "kiss all the pretty Genevoises for me", and since Kinloch seemed to be very enthusiastic about the fairer sex later on, it's not a stretch at all that he was socialising with the local and visiting ladies alike (most probably at dinners, or at plays and other public events).

Another fun observation that comes to mind – Geneva was surrounded by city walls, and the gates were locked overnight for safety, barring people from entering or leaving. So... if you lost track of time on the wrong side of the gate, you might have had to crash at your friend's house overnight and, well... how many beds could there really have been?

(I mean, probably enough beds, but also consider period-typical bed sharing and having fun with fictional scenarios.)

john-laurens

I'm also not aware of any writings from Kinloch during his time with Laurens in Geneva. This "kiss all the pretty Genevoises for me" line is a favorite of mine, and I think it is pretty telling of Kinloch's general attitude and behavior toward women.

I will note that pretty much everything we know about Kinloch's interest in/involvement with women during his time in Switzerland and other European countries exists because Kinloch wrote about his own sexual escapades in his letters to Johannes von Müller. Kinloch's relationship with Müller was one of the most intimate and loving relationships of his life; the fact that Kinloch felt comfortable enough to engage in physical relationships with women and write to Müller about it shows that he did not view these types of relationships (physical intimacy with women vs. romantic intimacy with men) as mutually exclusive. (Müller also apparently "like[d] something licentious" in Kinloch's letters [Kinloch to Müller, May 16, 1777], so perhaps Kinloch's behavior was also encouraged by Müller to a certain extent.) It's entirely possible that there was a similar dynamic going on when Kinloch was spending time with Laurens in Geneva.

Another dynamic that could be explored is Francis "I can lower my sexual standards for women when I have a boyfriend who fulfills me in other ways" Kinloch: "Whilst I lived With You, & my Mind Was perpetually taken up, I was satisfied With the fortuitous enjoyment of a Savoyard girl, or a not-ugly beggar Woman_" (Kinloch to Müller, February 2, 1778).

inkafterdark

Ok first dibs I got

Hamburr sharing a wine drunk and flirting

civilizedtoilet-manualdeactived

lanfykins

When I find whoever started the popular delusion that Burr was aiming to miss Hamilton but killed him by accident…

Look. I am a thoroughgoing Burrito. I will defend my dead historical boyfriend against anyone. For hours. With references. Harvard style if necessary. But -

History isn’t as we *want* it to be, and neither are people. You gotta face up to them as they are, in order to understand them.

What little evidence we have says that however much Burr regretted it afterwards, he did go to Weehawken intending to kill. You ain’t doing anyone any favours if you misrepresent that. Least of all Burr himself.

aaronburrssexdungeon

i get where you're coming from and support the overall sentiment of not allowing affection for a historical figure to cloud one's judgement, but i think this post is a little unfair. the vast majority of people who know anything about burr do think that he intended to kill. (i WISH the sentiment that hamilton's death was accidental was more popular. maybe just on youtube lmfao.) murderous-burr has been the understood narrative for hundreds of years. this assumption was largely unchallenged until the 20th century with things like the small but significant smithsonian hair-trigger discovery in the 1970's, deeper research into the practices of 18th century dueling from other scholars like rorabaugh, and joanne freeman's landmark work building on these discoveries where she carefully dismantled the popular view of dueling into something far more subtle and complicated. (and less narratively juicy, but there you go)

the evidence in burr's favor, while obscure and sometimes hard to grasp, is very much contextual to his life and contingent on the society in which he lived (not necessarily his personal thoughts, which we can never know). 18th-19th century dueling amongst upper class gentleman of burr's peer group, as a whole, did not see or understand dueling as a convenient means to murder their "opponents". rather they saw it as a display of bravery and masculinity where most did, in fact, end up with no one dying or some kind of non lethal leg wound, if there was an injury at all - and there usually wasn't. the point of an 18th century duel, as both hamilton and burr would understand it, based on that context, was to prove yourself willing to die for your honor, not kill your opponent. that doesn't mean burr couldn't have felt something individually different from the prevailing norm, but the evidence for this is second-hand and anecdotal and exceptional - not to mention from dubious-at-best sources like his political opponents and journalists like cheetham. and burr himself doesn't clarify his intentions either. for every instance of him coldly using hamilton's death as politically beneficial, there is an instance of him stating he didn't intend to kill him. and even more instances of him being cryptic. so with this understanding, it's more productive to take a holistic view of the era and work from there rather than trying to discern one man's interior sentiments.

other people in the reblogs have said much the same here but really the problem is putting intentions on either of them, whether good or bad. we absolutely don't know for certain if hamilton was suicidal and willing to die, and we also don't know if burr was murderous and willing to kill. and while i do believe there are people who want to defend burr at all costs and will make illogical excuses for him, some (myself included) have very good and solid reasons for saying that his intentions were ambivalent, at best, and that we can't conclude with certainty one over the other. (and ultimately i think these details are kind of beside the point and only serve to obscure larger and more significant questions about this duel in particular and the practice of dueling in general, but that's a different rant.)

ciceroprofacto

i do have a question: how exactly would john laurens study warfare? how does one figure out what was taught at older times in colleges?

One cannot be both gentleman and scholar. A brief look at university life during the 18th century.

Linking Paulette Golden's website because it's a fantastic resource for cultural research on the 18th century, specifically in Georgian England. Her focus centers on Oxford and Cambridge. Middle Temple's history page claims that it was in a period of relative decline during the mid-1700s, but it can be assumed, much of Paulette's discussion of pedagogy and university life was also true of Middle Temple.

In essence, gentlemen would grow up being tutored on whatever subjects were relevant to their estate. Then, in university, students had "Fellows" who would conduct guided discussions. There wasn't a standardized curriculum, and they could pursue readings beyond what their fellow assigned. At the end of term, there were oral examinations to determine if a student was properly "read". There were only a few degrees available and they funneled into three basic professions: Law, Medicine, or Religion.

There's a letter from John Laurens to his uncle where he waffled over which one to pursue. Ultimately, he decided on the law. His signature sometimes included the title Esquire which indicates that he passed his examinations before leaving Middle Temple.

In SOA, I have him brag about studying warfare because- after discussing the available professions, Laurens emphasized that he was interested, first and foremost, in being a Soldier. His interest in education extended as far as it allowed him to pursue that. So, I assume that he was using whatever latitude he had with his fellows to read contemporaneous works on strategy and military science.

The only way to know what specific subjects someone studied is if they mentioned specific titles in letters, and if Laurens did that somewhere, I haven't found it.

ciceroprofacto

My wife also reminded me to mention, he considered spending the winter after graduation volunteering with the Prussian Army. I brought this up as a plot point, starting in ch 15, to demonstrate he doesn't have practical experience in how drill works prior to Steuben's arrival.

It's something he was obviously trying to learn on his own.

john-laurens

John also tried to acquire books on military strategy while he was serving in the Continental Army. On March 9, 1778, John wrote the following to his father Henry

If among the Books that Du Plessis has given me, there is one entitled la Tactique de Ghibert, I am very anxious to read it_ likewise the Work of Mesnil Durand_

Mesnil-Durand was a French tactician. "La Tactique de Ghibert," if misspelled, could potentially be a book about art - Lorenzo Ghiberti was an Italian Renaissance artist.

my-deer-friend

Laurens is probably referring to Essai général de tactique by Jacques Antoine Hippolyte, Comte de Guibert.

I'll note that the very first link OP included specifically talks about the Oxbridge education model, which is a little different to education worked at the inns of court.

In the 18th century, there were only two things you had to do in order to qualify as a lawyer through one of the four inns, of which Middle Temple was one: 1) pay your fees, and 2) "keep term" (attend a certain number of dinners) twelve times – four terms a year over the course of three years. There was no set curriculum and no examination; instead, students lived either at the inn or in private lodgings with a barrister, and their education depended very much on who was supervising them. Typical learning activities could include reading law books (Blackstone was a favourite), observing court porceedings, and assisting lawyers with paperwork (usually the drudgery of copying things out). The dinners were meant to be both networking and learning events, and sometimes may have included lectures or readings by eminent legal professionals.

Henry Laurens gives a nice summary of the process in his 26 October 1773 letter to John:

You have Entered the Study of the Law [...] you come to England, take the benefit of Residing with Gentlemen, who can make you acquainted with the Attorney's practice, direct & assist your Studies in the Common Law, while at the same time you attend all the Courts at Westminster &c & also keep your Terms regularly at the Temple, in order that you may be called to the Bar in due Course_

ciceroprofacto

Exactly I said, the main link is Oxford and Cambridge. But, the dialogue-style methodology and university life were essentially the same. Golden’s research is just a good reference.

Do you have a link to the reference you’re using for the Inns’ requirements? @my-deer-friend

Especially compared to most modern law schools’ lecture-style model, the biggest point I wanted to make is that studies were largely self-guided. Students had a lot of latitude to read broadly on various subjects.

my-deer-friend

Here's an extract from the Report of the Commissioners etc etc that was concluded in 1855 with the purpose of reviewing and reforming legal education in Britain. It's important to note here that the "Lectures of two of the Readers" readings mentioned were introduced in the 1830s. On p. 10:

While students would still enrol, eat their dinners, keep their terms and be Called to the Bar, legal education had declined, and the Masters of the Bench were, with some exceptions, no longer the leading lights of the profession. Readings were no longer being given – Readers would simply pay £200 to be considered ‘to have Read’, which saved the Reader time and expense and raised funds for the Inn – and the old structure of moots and exercises had largely become a formality.

‘The Eighteenth Century - Stagnation and Neglect | Middle Temple’. Accessed 18 January 2025. https://www.middletemple.org.uk/archive/history/eighteenth-century-stagnation-and-neglect.

How qualified were they? After eating their set number of dinners, keeping their terms, and reading or paying for their ‘exercises’, members of the inns of court (normally in their mid-twenties by this stage) were formally eligible for call to the bar and practice at Westminster. Of course we cannot be as certain about their educational achievements and legal competence. During their student years the serious-minded would have gone through some or all of the various steps described above for actually learning the law, with varying degrees of determination and enthusiasm. But there was no guarantee that newly called men were substantive lawyers as well as barristers. As John Rayner, a radical legal writer, asked rhetorically, ‘What then are his qualifications for a barrister at law? Nothing further is necessary than to produce a certificate of his having dined a certain number of times in the hall of the inns he is a member of, and of his having paid the cook’s bills, &c.’ And even if barristers had been conscientious students, the breadth of their legal education is certainly open to doubt, in the sense of producing lawyers who were sensitive to the social purposes of law, despite the efforts of reformers like Blackstone.

Lemmings, David. ‘Gentlemen Bred to the Law: Induction and Legal Education’. In Professors of the Law: Barristers and English Legal Culture in the Eighteenth Century, edited by David Lemmings. Oxford University Press, 2000.

(Highly recommend this book on the topic)

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daily dose of historic gays