#princess seraphina

[abz-j-harding]

♡

X

[fhtagn-and-tentacles]

GLOWS LIKE MOONLIGHT

by Abigail J Harding

[princess-seraphina-the-cat]

*there’s a gentle sound, like a whisper, or the wind*

…Sera….phina…?

Who's there?!

*Seraphina grabs her bow, looking around the empty kitchen*

Show yourself!

@erintheweasel

[amphibious-thing]

The thing that gets me about people saying that we don't know what d'Eon's pronouns were is that we actually have much better information on her pronouns than we do for most historical figures.

Take Princess Seraphina for example. Most of what we know about Seraphina comes from the trial of Thomas Gordon (5 July 1732). In the trial some witnesses who knew Seraphina use she/her pronouns. For example this is how Mary Poplet talks about the Princess:

I have known her Highness a pretty while, she us’d to come to my House from Mr. Tull, to enquire after some Gentlemen of no very good Character; I have seen her several times in Women’s Cloaths, she commonly us’d to wear a white Gown, and a scarlet Cloak, with her Hair frizzled and curl’d all round her Forehead; and then she would so flutter her Fan, and make such fine Curties, that you would not have known her from a Woman: She takes great Delight in Balls and Masquerades, and always chuses to appear at them in a Female Dress, that she may have the Satisfaction of dancing with fine Gentlemen. Her Highness lives with Mr. Tull in Eagle-Court in the Strand, and calls him her Master, because she was Nurse to him and his Wife when they were both in a Salivation; but the Princess is rather Mr. Tull’s Friend, than his domestick Servant. I never heard that she had any other Name than the Princess Sraphina.

However others use he/him pronouns, this is how Mary Robinson talks about Seraphina:

I was trying on a Suit of Red Damask at my Mantua-maker’s in the Strand, when the Princess Seraphina came up, and told me the Suit look’d mighty pretty. I wish, says he, you would lend ‘em me for a Night, to go to Mrs. Green’s in Nottingham-Court, by the Seven Dials, for I am to meet some fine Gentlemen there. Why, says I, can’t Mrs. Green furnish you? Yes, says he, she lends me a Velvet Scarf and a Gold Watch sometimes. He used to be but meanly dress’d, as to Men’s Cloaths, but he came lately to my Mantua-maker’s, in a handsome Black Suit, to invite a Gentlewoman to drink Tea with Mrs. Tull. I ask’d him how he came to be so well Rigg’d? And he told me his Mother had lately sold the Reversion of a House; And now, says he, I’ll go and take a Walk in the Park, and shew my self. 

So what do we make of this? Did Seraphina use both he/him and she/her pronouns or is Robinson misgendering Seraphina? This is an issue we unfortunately have when talking about queer people we have very little information on. We can guess at the answer but we can't know for sure.

But with d'Eon not only do we know that her friends, family and most of the English public used she/her pronouns for her but we even have examples of d'Eon using she/her pronouns for herself when writing in third person. This is probably the best evidence we are ever going to get for someone of this period. It's an amazingly clear source for the pronoun question. Like wow there's the answer right there in ink on paper.

[Invitation from the Chevalière d’Eon to Lord Besborough c.1791, via The British Museum (D,1.268-272)]

[keyblack]

"It was... very gallant of you to rescue me like you did."

anyways on another note

[prince-luffy]

@rootbeergoddess let me draw her lovely OC Seraphina so that I could practice coloring darker skintones. I hope I did her justice.

[awkwardtaco056]

Doodles feat. my OCs acting like their sun signs

In order we got Sammi, Oliver, Ilene (all Taureans), Shay (Capricorn), Seraphina (Cancer), and Xander (Pisces)

[ajollyyarn]

Princess Seraphina was a real person, living in 18th century London. She was a molly, part of a fledgling, legally persecuted, underground subculture formed by people who today might identify as gay men, transwomen, or otherwise queer. Like most mollies, our only record of her is a court document. Still, she stands apart, having evaded prosecution herself despite apparently living openly as Princess Seraphina in her working class neighborhood.

The pages hidden within this book’s skirts hold what little we know about her, and what some of her neighbors thought of her. I constructed her using chicken wire, then covered her in paper mache. After that, I designed, printed, and bound the book block, all in the same red as the paste downs. The text included is disjointed excerpts from her court case, as well as some brief historical context, broken up by blank pages. I then carefully measured and cut the front cover from the rest of her, and then it was a matter of case binding, paper mache, and more paper mache.

Want to read the original court document? It’s online here at historian Rictor Norton’s website. If you explore more of the documents he has available, I recommend packing a box of tissues.

Want to see me make more work like this? So do I!  tip jar & etsy