history is just a fable that people consider true

*On hiatus* My name's Lily, my icon is "Sabinella" by John William Godward and the header is "The Battle of Quiberon Bay" by Nicolas Pocock. Mostly 18th century but can include things from the 17th century or prior. Pretty much anything historical that interests me, tending to be pre-1800. Also, just queer history in general. I take myself too seriously and I write essays in the tags. And just talk too much in general. Feel free to pop into my DMs or ask! Check out my other blog @redsnapdragons for nonhistory if you want

[coquesne]

sorry. still on hiatus and i dont see it ending soon. i’m planning on coming back at some point, but honestly, tumblr is exhausting. you get it. anyway, come back in a few months and i might be back. or i’ll have started a new blog idk

[coquesne]

Happy Pride Month, guys! Let’s all remember this month that gay, trans, and otherwise queer history did not start with Stonewall :)

[coquesne]

Names that are real that I have actually read in history books

An incomplete list

Cotton Mather

Increase Mather

Cadwallader Colden

Levi Frisbie

Eleazer Wheelock

Zabdiel Boylston

Wright Post

Peleg Sprague

Thomas Wigglesworth

Michael Wigglesworth (no relation)

And my all time favorite

Hieronymus Cock

[your-disobedient-servant]

[coquesne]

Every once in a while I remember John Andre and cry as if the man didn’t die like 240 years ago

[coquesne]

For the ask game: 1, 2, 4, 5, 19, 24 (sorry if it's a lot but they're all so interesting!)

Thank you for asking all that! This got really long so it’s under the cut

1. Historical figure you used to like before you learned more about

Idk if I ever really liked a historical figure, like as a person, but I would probably have to say John Laurens based on what I thought about him from the Hamilton musical fandom’s interpretation of him (soft uwu turtle boi. just. no.) and then when I read his actual biography and learned more about him as a person. Not saying that I don’t like him anymore or think that he was a bad person (certainly not if we’re comparing him to other South Carolinians of the time) but he’s definitely a complex person to figure out (and honestly? that’s what I love about learning about him and practically all other historical figures) and at times made some questionable moral decisions.

2. Historical figure you love to hate

Ooh! Marquis de Sade! He was a truly fucked up individual but intensely interesting. Absolutely insane that he spent a total of 32 years in prison and just kept writing really violent porn throughout it. I think that he was Not a good person and I can’t ethically agree with most of his philosophies, but I think that he deserves to be seen as a philosopher in his own right like all those other guys you probably know more than me about because (and now we’re just going straight into philosophy instead of history) those are some really interesting ideas. Basically I hate him personally, but I love him as a historical figure.

4. Historical figure everyone should collectively stop talking about

This one’s hard. Henry VIII? Maybe I’m just saying this because my mom watched The Tudors a few too many times and now brings Henry VIII up whenever I talk about history (and my kind of history is never related to late medieval English monarchy (ok except for the fact that under Henry VIII England made buggery a crime and that does actually relate to what I study))

5. Historical figure we should talk more about

OH BOY let me introduce you to a person named George/Mary/Charles Hamilton because they actually used all three of these names (no relation to the other Hamilton). He was born Mary Hamilton in England, and then at fourteen dressed as a boy and under the name George and began training to be a doctor. Later in life, he ended up actually marrying a woman, but a few months later the woman reported George and since there was no actual crime on the books befitting what George did, they charged him with fraud, for supposedly tricking the woman into marrying them. We don’t know if there was a trick, or if the woman knew she was marrying a biological woman and just got angry enough for some other reason to tell the authorities, but George ended up being whipped for fraud. Henry Fielding, Just Some Guy™ , wrote a fictionalized version of Hamilton’s life and story under the title The Female Husband, popularizing this version of events in which George married 14 different women and defrauded them (this did not happen). This was in 1746, and Hamilton drops off the radar in England. Then, a couple decades later in Philadelphia I think it was, there’s a man named Charles Hamilton going around doctoring and I think may have been living with another woman (I can find the source for this if you want me to I’m just lazy). There’s no direct link that George and Charles Hamilton were the same person, but the timeline lands right and everything is a very perfect coincidence if that’s what it actually was. The Wikipedia page for Mary Hamilton is in my opinion trash and unnecessarily disparaging and that’s probably due to the fact that the most cited source in it was written in the 50s. I’m sure you can imagine why that’s not ideal. But anyway, one of the most interesting life stories i think and no one knows about it.

19. Which historical kingmaker / hand behind the throne kinda person would you gladly be a puppet of?

Ooh this is a hard one. I don’t actually know that much about stuff like this. I’d maybe say Ivarr, Ubba, and Halfdan Ragnarsson? They did a bunch of stuff with the Great Heathen Army in the 800s and were pretty cool. Like all of the kings of England were just paying them and saying ‘please don’t attack us look money and horses.’ Idk much about them except from what I learned playing Assassins Creed Valhalla

24. What made you fall in love with history?

*no one get mad at me please* Hamilton. Fucking Hamilton. Don’t worry, now I think that it was objectively bad and the fandom is absolutely toxic and just plain weird (looking at you, hatsune miku jefferson binder). But yeah. I listened to Hamilton, I thought, wait, this guy sounds cool, I read the Chernow biography, I thought, wait, this guy is just a Hamilton fanboy I don’t wanna read this. At this point in time I’ve read tons about Hamilton the person and though I still think that he has an objectively cool story, he’s very hyped and I can’t think about Alexander Hamilton without remembering being 14 and fangirling over the musical version of him and cringing. But I got introduced to the wacky world of 18th century queer history through him and Laurens and the rest is history (that was a horrible pun i’m so sorry). Yeah. Now I’m a history major and it’s all thanks to Lin Manuel Miranda I hate it too.

[trochaictrimeter-deactivated202]

history asks are rare and us centric so i made my own list

Historical figure you used to like before you learned more about

Historical figure you love to hate

Historical figure you want to write a paper/dissertation/book about

Historical figure everyone should collectively stop talking about

Historical figure we should talk more about

Favourite history book / text book

Favourite primary source

Favourite secondary source

Favourite quote from a historical address/speech

Favourite quote from a letter

Favourite quote from an autobiography

Favourite world leader

Favourite civilization

Favourite historian

Opinion on revolutions / are they necessary / are they effective / do you want to be part of one?

Opinion on a figure on your country’s currency (pick the one on the highest value of currency)

Opinion on military history

The battle you know most facts about

Which historical kingmaker / hand behind the throne kinda person would you gladly be a puppet of?

How often do you encounter privileged boys who say they admire Hitler / what is your response?

How good are you at remembering names and dates?

What two things that happened concurrently shock you the most?

What country’s history do you know a lot about besides your own? Why and have you been there?

What made you fall in love with history?

The topic/title of your last History paper

[coquesne]

New favorite pastime is looking at 100+ year old ads in magazines

[vivelareine]

Details from self-portraits by female 18th-century artists

Adélaïde Labille-Guiard (1749-1803) Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (1755-1842) Angelica Kauffman (1741-1807) Marie-Gabrielle Capet (1761-1818) Rose-Adélaïde Ducreux (1761-1802) Marie-Geneviève Bouliar (1763-1825)

[antique-royals]

Lady Helen Gordon-Lennox, Duchess of Northumberland

[naberiie]

WHAT is that one poem (?), abt a modern worker contemplating the numerous forgotten who were actually responsible for all the ‘great’ deeds of history

[naberiie]

found it!!

A Worker Reads History Bertolt Brecht

Who built the seven gates of Thebes? The books are filled with names of kings. Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone? And Babylon, so many times destroyed. Who built the city up each time? In which of Lima’s houses, That city glittering with gold, lived those who built it? In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished Where did the masons go? Imperial Rome Is full of arcs of triumph. Who reared them up? Over whom Did the Caesars triumph? Byzantium lives in song. Were all her dwellings palaces? And even in Atlantis of the legend The night the seas rushed in, The drowning men still bellowed for their slaves. Young Alexander conquered India. He alone? Caesar beat the Gauls. Was there not even a cook in his army? Phillip of Spain wept as his fleet was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears? Frederick the Great triumphed in the Seven Years War. Who triumphed with him? Each page a victory At whose expense the victory ball? Every ten years a great man, Who paid the piper? So many particulars. So many questions.

[partialbirthabortion]

We owe all the gay men and women who came before us an incalculable debt for living in the world they did and still making art, writing poetry, taking pictures of themselves loving the people they loved. Please love each other just as fiercely as they must have looked to the future and loved us.

[a-lady-in-blue]

The Fashions of the Day – or Time Past and Time Present: The Year (1740) a Lady's Full Dress of Bombazeen – The Year (1808) Lady's Undress of Bum-be-seen

ca. 1808

Anonymous, Irish, 19th century Irish https://www.metmuseum.org/

[coquesne]

You know you’re into some good research when you have to close your book or laptop every fifteen minutes to sigh and say ‘this is fucked up’

[clear-as-starlight]

i don’t make many actual historical posts on here, but aside from having studied history, I research in my spare time as well, and I love a historical ~mystery~

(This might not be a mystery to some, but it was to me, so if it was a mystery to you too look no further xD. Equally, I’m sure someone else has made a post about it at some point).

But! I’ve seen this…interesting image floating around a lot, credited to the dubious artistic talent of Alexander Hamilton:

And though incredibly hilarious, I wanted to know if it was actually his dodgy ass talent or not?

Well, after much wasted(?) time and ridiculous stubbornness, I have located it xD

It is on page 76 of “New York August 31 1776: Pay Book of the State Company of Artillery Commanded by Alexr Hamilton” which can be found in the Library of Congress online.

https://www.loc.gov/resource/mss24612.031_0422_0606/?sp=2&r=0.444,-0.677,1.111,1.354,0

Image 2 of Alexander Hamilton Papers: Miscellany, 1711-1820; Military papers; By period; American Revolution, 1775-1783; New York Artillery

Image 2 of Alexander Hamilton Papers: Miscellany, 1711-1820; Military papers; By period; American Revolution, 1775-1783; New York Artillery

So, ~there you have it folks~. Assuming Hamilton was the only one keeping records in here and doodling (which seems likely), he did indeed draw such a bizarre and nightmarish picture, and we can all officially make fun of him for it forever 🎉

[coquesne]

legit all i want out of life rn is to read mother clap’s molly house by rictor norton

[revolutionfairies]

Riding Coat, England (1750-9) vam

Riding Habit Jacket (1790s) vam

Riding Coat, Britain (1750-9) vam

Riding Waistcoat, Britain (1790-5) vam

Riding Habit, United Kingdom (1770-5) vam

Women’s Riding Habit, Venice, Italy (1780) lacma

Women’s Riding Ensemble, American (1820) philamuseum

Women’s Riding Habit (1890) lacma

Riding Ensemble, American (1896) met