Listen to the episode here.

Journey with us on a fantastic romp through history. Theresa shares the story of Enheduanna, the first named author. She lived in approximately 2300 BC, in ancient Sumaria, and wrote hymns for 42 temples and three epic poems. 

Angie regales us with the tale of Jeffrey Hudson. As a member of the court of Queen Henrietta Maria, the wife of Charles I of England, he lived quite the life. This man was raised as a gentleman, fought a duel, and was kidnapped by pirates. 
Angie failed to tell Theresa that Jeffrey Hudson was only 18 or 19 inches high and more often known as the “queen’s dwarf.”

This episode pairs well with: 
Angie’s favorite court mistress – Nell Gwyn 

Transcript:

Theresa: Hi, and welcome to the Unhinged History Podcast, the podcast where two compulsive nut jobs are snuggled up under comfy blankets and deciding to regale their friend with a history story we’ve only recently learned and we hope that the other one hasn’t learned yet. I’m host one, I’m Teresa, and Matt is host two and I’m Angie. 

Theresa: Welcome, you’ve made it. Hello, congratulations. 

Angie: Or condolences. Condolences. We start at condolences and work our way to congratulations. Okay, okay. I did just look at the list. It appears that I am going first. You are in fact. 

Theresa: My story. I knew this already ahead of time. Can you believe that? 

Angie: Would you quit making it sound like where I don’t know paying attention to life? 

Theresa: Like I don’t normally know and this morning I was like, oh my gosh, I actually know the order today. Like I will not move. What happened? Well, I’ll talk about that for a second. That’s all. Yeah, okay. 

Angie: My story was suggested by a friend of mine, Rashida, and I’m going to tell you the story of Inhead Dwana. Okay, go. Good. I’m glad you didn’t know who she was. My sources, bbc.com, Inhead Dwana, the world’s first named author. 

Then I found a article from the Inhead Dwana exhibit and then Aramco World has Inhead Dwana, or was Inhead Dwana the world’s first author by Lee Lawrence. Are you ready? Okay. 

Theresa: Just briefly, what nationality is Inhead Dwana? 

Angie: We are heading all the way to, you say that and I’m like, I want to say a word, but then I want to make sure that I’m not wrong. 

Theresa: So this is why I’m asking this question. 

Angie: Honestly, just stand by because there’s lots of clues in the thing. 

Theresa: Sumerians, taking another one off my list then. All right, carry on. Go. 

Angie: Okay. So in 1927, we’re in Iraq. Archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley, he sounds white. 

Theresa: Just gonna say, well, if he’s not white. 

Angie: Yeah. Yeah. He’s as white as the sheep that are woolen and where he gets his name from. Woolley discovers what’s called the disc of Inhead Dwana, along with several other artifacts. And this is actually his most famous expedition of ore. Okay. Now the British Museum and the Penn Museum, they form a partnership to excavate ore and they chose Woolley as their British archaeologist to head the excavations. 

Theresa: He’s because you have to have a British archaeologist every time. 

Angie: I mean, look, are you even having a dig if you don’t have a British guy there? No, I mean, you need a sir. 

Theresa: In fact, token white guy. Yeah. 

Angie: Token aristocrat. Yep. Now he’s recognized as a pioneer in modern archaeology and is hailed for the way that he’s able to reconstruct ancient history of Mesopotamia through his findings. Or really remarked or worked on a grand scale in the era of, you know, what are big digs that no longer exist. 

Or online is a collaboration site between the British Museum and the Penn Museum, and they state that his landmark excavations would become the largest in Iraq’s history, with seasons normally lasting four months a year, utilizing up to 300 workers at one point, alongside a small number of archaeological staff. Wow. Okay. This is fairly massive. 

Theresa: Sounds like it. An undertaking, if you will. Wow. 

Angie: Well done. Time. You’re welcome. So he exhumed thousands of bodies, thousands of texts, tens of thousands of registered artifacts. He took over 2,000 photographs and wrote nearly 20,000 pages of notes, and those don’t include letters and reports. 

Wow. He investigated a massive ziggurat and uncovered temples, administrative buildings, private houses that range from time, through a whole range of time periods, as well as royal and primitive primitives, private, royal and private graves. His excavations revealed more about war than we know about other Mesopotamian cities. 

Okay. So basically, like he did the things he knows the things. Good job, Tolkien White guy. Now, his greatest find, as far as many people are concerned, is what’s called the disk of Inhetwana. It’s one of several items to bear her name, and we now know that her name in Sumerian means ornament of heaven. Ooh, I love that. 

Isn’t that beautiful? And as the high priestess of the moon deity, Nana Sun, she composed 42 temple hymns and three standalone poems that, like the Epic of Gilgamesh, scholars considered an important part of Mesopotamian’s literary legacy. Now, it’s noted in here that Epic of Gilgamesh is not credited to named author. 

Correct. So she’s got three epic poems with her name on the bottom. I love this for her, isn’t it? 

It’s pretty fantastic. So in conjunction with her religious or statues as a religious figure and priestess, Inhetwana wielded political power as the daughter of Sargon the Great. Now, he’s credited by some historians as being the founder of the world’s first empire. In particular, she plays an essential role in helping bind together the northern Mesopotamian regions of Akkad, where Sargon first rose to power before he goes on to capture the Sumerian city-states in the south. She did so by helping meld a belief and rituals associated with the Sumerian godness Inanna and the other Akkadian goddess Ishtar by emphasizing those links to her literary and religious hymns and poems. So just by her writing, she creates a shared belief system that’s used throughout the empire. 

Theresa: Would you do me a quick favor and look at my name? 

Angie: I know. I know what your name is on this thing. Trust me, I’ve thought about it the entire time I’ve been putting together these notes. I’m so excited for you. So where did you get Akkadians? Because they they spell with two Ks, so they they have a bit more. 

Theresa: I only spell it with one, but the Akkadians were like they could be considered the first organized band of military. So they were used as missionaries and or mercenaries, not missionaries. 

Theresa: I mean mercenaries and yeah I guess that’s true and our religious violence. They were united under Sargon, like he used them quite extensively in his campaigns. 

Angie: So but why do you subscribe? 

Theresa: I honestly have been such a this is going to sound so dumb, but this is how my brain works. The mummy movie with the rock where he plays the scorpion king. Yeah, he is described as an Akkadian and I loved the words so much. So that movie came out when I was like what 18, 19 years old sounds accurate. So almost 22 years ago. And since then I have spent so much of my time learning everything about this people because I assumed since it was made into a movie that it was just some cool word that the writers like you know back when I was 18, 19. 

Angie: Hey man I found this cool word we’re gonna say Akkadian. 

Theresa: Yeah and I loved it and I wanted to know that it was real and so back then you know the internet was just 

Theresa: and 

Theresa: it’s getting the ability right getting the ability to Google and things. So I like gobbled up every bit of information that I could find. So it’s been my gamer tag. It’s been my computer tag since then. Okay. All because the rock played a really stupid character to movie once then I needed to know they were a real people group. 

Angie: I mean honestly as a number of rabbit holes I’ve gone on for less. I’m here for it. 

Theresa: Yeah same thing like thanks to rock. 

Angie: I like how it’s a rock and not Dwayne. 

Theresa: No he is simply the rock in our house. 

Angie: So anyhow she ends up creating a shared belief system with these things. Each of the hymns that she wrote for the 42 temples in the southern half of Mestitania highlighted the unique character of the patron goddess to the worshipers of those cities. Apparently there was a little bit of nuance that she paid attention to and the hymns are copied by scribes in the temples for hundreds of years after her death. So she wrote some chart toppers. 

Theresa: Okay so her and all of a sudden I’m drawing a blank on the man who wrote Amazing Grace. They’re in the same category together. Yeah pretty much. 

Angie: Yeah although I don’t know if I hear any of her hymns done on bagpipe but now I kind of want to hear any of them let alone on bagpipe. That’d be pretty cool. So people who’ve done a decent study of her her poems believed they could hint that she had a solid grasp of mathematics which really shocked and excited me and that doesn’t seem so much out of the realm of possibility when historians are able to trace maps origins to Mestitania right along the side of development of cuneiform and other writing systems. And the the the nerds I love the shimmy you just did that was fantastic way to do something that can be heard in an audio format. 

Theresa: I’m here for it. Sorry sometimes excitement is simply palpable and not audible. 

Angie: There I lost my spot I got so excited with all of that with getting distracted by that but they were saying that writing and counting were developed by necessity in Mestitania’s active agricultural and textile economy where the systems had become intertwined as farmers and merchants counted what was produced and recorded what was being sold and traded and that makes a ton of sense. 

Theresa: I think isn’t there it might not be Samarian but there is a clay tablet that we can read today that is an actual like customer grievance. 

Angie: And I believe that’s not like the only one like there’s like a whole shelf of bad yelp reviews that this guy had. Love this love this for us. I can’t remember if it’s like the shop owner who kept hold of those or if it’s just one person who went and just like hey we hate Bob. Do you got something bad about Bob? 

Theresa: Because I’m making a petition. 

Angie: We’re going to deliver this cart load of anti-Bob material. 

Theresa: Could you imagine the manager having to respond to each of those and tapping out each response? 

Angie: That sounds brutal. It really does. Okay so one of the things that we see and I’ll show you this in a second. So the calcite disc that you’re seeing this this is the disc of Udentia in Hedwana. It dates you know approximately 2300 BC and it depicts a scene where she’s accompanied by simply dressed attendants and they’re carrying ritual objects. They seem to be marching solemnly in line outside a stepped ziggurat like temple and they say that she’s identifiable here with her circular headdress and her tiered flounced robe. 

Theresa: Okay I was wondering if that’s flounced is a good word because that wasn’t going to be the word I was going to say tiered was. How do we specifically know that they’re solemn? Because it seems to me that their facial expressions have sort of been rubbed off. 

Angie: You know I honestly I haven’t looked at her any kind of magnification. 

Theresa: I guess that’s true we’re working off what we can see on this. 

Angie: Yeah so I mean it is what it is as far as I can. Now it’s here that they say that she’s raising her eyes to Inanna the goddess of love and war and that she maintained her position as that priestess for 40 years until her death. Wow good for her. Yeah now beyond I hit Wana there’s 90 some objects in an expedition that you know kind of go along with her disc and we see a lot of the ways in which women participated in the various aspects of Mesopotamian society and I was excited by this because it showed a great visibility that I don’t think I knew about that women had in this world. There’s a dude named Babcock who goes on to say that he like all of these artifacts really set the stage for a Hedwana and that Mesopotamia was a less patriarchal than basically anywhere else that there would have been quote no doubt an abbey because in this era women could have owned property and it would have been inherited through the female line. That kind of checks elaborate. 

Theresa: Well when we think about most incredibly ancient societies they were matriarchal as opposed to what we have once unfortunately much Christianity sets the tone. I mean you experienced some of the patriarchy before that but not nearly as much especially in the more what’s the word I’m looking for rules not the word but like the more isolated areas you see far more of the goddess worship of the female female leadership thing you do in other areas than in other timeframes. So it’s not surprising that she would have some sort of position given the time frame not that they weren’t that not that they were isolated but just given the time frame I’m not surprised. 

Angie: The time period could have been anywhere from 2300 to 3400 BC there’s like some range right well there’s this mass growth and or massive growth in Mesopotamians ermid centers and the continuing expansion that they have and producing and trading goods throughout the country the region everywhere and everyone is looking for more workers and many of these people are women surprise surprise you’ve got half the population apparently they’re available to work wild 

Theresa: and so it’s like we have thumbs and 

Angie: here it’s like we have thumbs hey hire me I have thumbs I mean 

Theresa: but we have over so you can’t put us on a 

Angie: train yeah we can’t go past 20 miles an hour but in Mesopotamia this means that they’re able to do more than the traditional roles they’re taking on religious duties they’re doing trades ceramics weaving baking animal husbandry brewing 

Theresa: and I’ve never been comfortable with it being called that why can’t it be called something else 

Angie: yeah yeah I don’t I don’t know I’d have to look into the etymology 

Theresa: it’s fine it’s just something that’s never sat well 

Angie: there’s like a list of things that never sat well for you isn’t there if I push do you have a full powerpoint presentation there could be Numa sits at the top fair with the rena sargon through in head the one is him we get an ever more warlike female deity that’s being depicted so ishtar god of love and war is seen portrayed in an exhibition with weapons coming out of her shoulders and a foot atop a lion whom’s who’s yield who’s leash she yields I’m trying to combine all the words in a sentence to get it 

Theresa: all out at once yep yeah and then it doesn’t make a sentence but it makes a salad instead 

Angie: yeah congrats you get to hear it um in her poem in head want to similarly portrays uh inanna slash ishtar as this powerful god of the combat and conquest as well as love and abundance which is fascinating to me to know that she is love and war I I don’t know of other cultures or religious systems that combine those two 

Theresa: I’m going to spend the rest of my day thinking about that now thanks you’re welcome 

Angie: um so in her text that she’s doing all this she’s pitting and embattled enraged in wanna against her enemy a mountain rage that refuses to bow down and or c to her and I have picked battles that may have been just maybe as insurmountable as wanting a mountain to bow down to me but 

Theresa: you know go ahead no what nope that’s I was just gonna say you do you we all have our moments that’s the hill you’ll die on thou 

Angie: I said yeah PMDD is rough so we see this goddess apparently she’s got like knives and axes and that causes the mountain stones to cascade downward to kill the mountain’s male god she sharpened both edges of her dagger she took the neck of this god as if she’s tearing it grass of grass and presented the blade to its heart and quote yell like thunder so that the stones making up a hit a bit like I feel weird saying that because I don’t know if that’s how I’m saying it right um crashed on its back and so then she celebrates her conquest by trump transiently placing her foot atop the fallen stones and Babcock who’s been doing kind of a literary critique about this says this is the first time you have illustrations for a text ever and that this was yet another first in her literary legacy that is so cool and I just that is fascinating to me that she did all of this there are some authors who say that she is probably not the first named author that there are probably other people who signed their names as well but that we just didn’t record we didn’t find record of them right you know and that makes a ton of sense 

Theresa: considering the library at Alexandria right 

Angie: you’re still you’re still going to be so upset about that and I’m here for it um thank you there’s a lot on my list there’s other scholars who go on to say that um we have to think that there were hundreds of women that were before her that were participating in oral literature as well I love this okay and so for us we can think of her as you know the first recorded author who so happens to be female and is a high priestess and the daughter of a king um but it’s really exciting to know that she’s really just one of many and just the one that we have to be kind of the figurehead of this whole movement and I do have other photos for you like this right here here is supposed to be her or if it were it is a female high priestess so it could easily look like the little statuette 

Theresa: it’s actually so cute isn’t it um she’s wearing the same tiered flounced dress as was described in the disc um she appears to have wow sorry I’m just enjoying the art here um I can’t tell if that’s a braid or some sort of perhaps I don’t want to call it a crown dydeum 

Angie: but I mean I would say braid it looks like a braid to me but I’m I’m an uncultured swine in this so 

Theresa: it’s some sort of headwear whether it’s her hair braided or a braided piece of something it’s definitely got the braided look to it and you have the images facing you and profile and you can see her sitting on an alabaster stone with her hands folded together there’s something in her lap I can’t make out what that is 

Angie: I don’t know what that is yeah but it is like a little disc yeah okay I’ll go with that look maybe I don’t know I love it she got her phone she’s just your phone yeah it’s her kindle she’s trying to keep up 

Theresa: yeah she’s got a good read she’s got to worry about 

Angie: but that’s the story of in head boona and I have spent the last good chunk of time walking around saying her name out loud so that I could say it out loud 

Theresa: I feel so much better that I’m not the only person that does that yeah yeah okay um we’re gonna thank you I loved that art I could have sat and looked at that for days just so you know um I’m gonna fast forward us through a few centuries my story takes place in the 1600s so oh yeah after christ facts um the patriarchy exists um and the names are much easier to pronounce so but there’s my hope we’re obviously Europe we are my first source and my biggest source is an article on history xrad written by john wolf in 2020 the amazing life of Jeffrey Hudson there is a royal collection trust that um houses the paintings and um some of the a little bit of the story that goes about each person in the painting so that’s kind of fun then there is a new zealand herald article from lj charleston from august of 2019 that I just thought was interesting I didn’t use a ton of information out of it but I’m signing it because I was kind of intrigued by it um but all that to say evidently I have a big love for all the court happenings of the charlie’s because as soon as I learn about one person from their court I find like 10 more people that I need to know about so I’ve got you a ditty from the court of Charlie one bring it on bring it okay so Jeffrey Hudson he is born 1619 to a poor country butcher he possibly the butcher could have also been the bull baiter for the duke of buckingham which seems likely but what is the bull baiter exactly what it sounds like 

Angie: don’t know I don’t know what that is 

Theresa: um okay I don’t have real clear understanding but the what I understand of it is they’re the ones that like prep the bull for bull fights okay do not quote me on that this I’m like going the far away because of my mind 

Angie: don’t quote me on that it’s what it sounds like you went from yeah 

Theresa: no I but it’s it’s simple it is what it sounds like but I don’t I didn’t spend five hours googling bull baiting but I am now Yes, I was right. Bull baiting is a blood sport where dogs are set upon a bull in a pen arena. The aim of attacking them is doing the bull by baiting and holding onto its nose or neck. So they are the ones prepping the bull and holding the bull so the dogs can do whatever it is that dogs do. I hate that. 

Angie: Anyway, how do you, I’m assuming it’s a different skill set between butcher and bull baiter. 

Theresa: I think that too. So I was a little bit confused because butcher made sense, but later in the story it makes sense that he would have been the bull baiter for the Duke of Buckingham. So maybe he was both. Maybe there’s more to either one of these jobs in the 1600s that we just are unclear about. 

That’s kind of what I think that it could have been a mixture. Regardless, he’s born in 1619 from an area called OCam. By the time he’s six, maybe seven years old, the Duke and Duchess of Buckingham, they’ve met him and they are just absolutely taken with this boy. I have mentioned actually this particular Duke before in my Lucy Hay story. 

Angie: I was just thinking about that, truly. 

Theresa: So I figured you would. So I just thought I would just, yes, I would let you know you were right. The Duke and Duchess, they are so just taken by this child that they offer to care for him and provide for him. And seeing as how his parents are sort of in a pickle of finances, like why wouldn’t you if you could get your son out of that situation and raise them to a higher station? 

Like that’s what their thought is. So he becomes the ward of the Duke and Duchess. In November of 1626, the Duke presents Jeffrey to the Queen. This is Queen Henrietta Maria of France, also featured in the Lucy Hay episode. If you’ll remember, the Duke wanted Lucy to spy on the Queen. So the Queen herself sees him, meets him and she is taken by his personality. He’s kind. He’s compassionate. Again, he’s just a child and she’s only 17, but she thinks he is just adorable and decides she must have him because she’s the Queen. You can do that. 

Angie: I mean, look, when you were a high schooler, you met those kids. You’re just darling. You’re a little flirt. Look at you little three-year-old batting your eyes at me. Do you want snack? Okay. 

Theresa: So that’s pretty much what happens. After the banquet, she takes him back to her private residence, which today is where Somerset House sits. But let me just take us on a little side quest first. 

I think to sort of set the scene. She is a French Catholic in Protestant England. So life is not always great for her, right? Given her circumstances. Her court and entourage had recently been expelled from the main court and it’s safe to say that she is feeling a bit trapped. I don’t think there’s a ton of love between her and Charlie. He is 10 years older than her and they don’t seem to get along much like they don’t have a lot to talk about. But again, we are talking about people that lived 400 years ago. 

I don’t have personal journals. What do we know? Right? But she sees Jeffrey as a companion. She even considers him a comfort. So she sees his education. 

She provides him his own servants. By the time he’s 14, he can shoot. He can hunt, as any gentleman of the day should. By the time he’s 21, he receives a salary from the Royal Treasury of 50 pounds per year. 

Angie: And he becomes a butcher and a bullbater? No, that’s what his father was. Oh, okay. Okay. I thought we were zipping. Okay, I’m with you now. 

Theresa: No, sorry. I might have been really unclear about that. That was his father’s profession. So he’s receiving 50 pounds a year. I did the math. I was only able to go back to 1751 for this. But if it had been 1751, it’s roughly $17,000 a year today. 

Angie: And that’s on top of your room and board? Yeah, absolutely. 

Theresa: So he’s pretty taken care of and he has a nice little allowance he’s working with, right? He would attend to the Queen and travel with her wherever she went. He would go on progress with her in the summer and then he would stay with her at the winter court. 

She adores him so much that he sits for her paintings with her. But by the time he’s 21, he’s still, I think, much like George Villeers was. He’s still feeling like more of a pet than a proper landed gentry gentleman, much the same that George Villeers felt before he became the Duke of Buckingham. 

He wanted to prove himself, right? I’ve kind of been living off this fancy lady all this time just because she thinks I’m charming. I want to do something with my life. It’s kind of what I’m imagining him at this age. But Civil War is on the horizon and he’s thinking he might just have a chance to prove himself. It’s 1642. 

He’s in his early 20s. The Queen has been forced to flee London so she heads to Holland and he comes along with her. She goes to Holland to ask for more funds in ammo to help fight the parliamentarians because, right, Civil War, you need help. They were, they come back. They don’t come back with a ton. 

They have a little bit, but Holland was kind of, I think, let’s just stay out of this one. On their return trip home, they stop at a small fishing village called Bridelington on the Yorkshire coast. They arrive around February 21. By the 22nd, their group is woken by the barrage of cannibals being rained down on the village. 

Oh, yeah, nice, huh? The parliamentarians, they are out for blood. They mean business and they’re shooting these cannons from their ships. 

So they’re not even, like, on the land. Everyone else ducks and runs for cover, but not Jeffrey because, hey, he’s super fierce. He’s super loyal and he sees this as his opportunity to make something of himself. He grabs his sword and his pistol and he rushes to the docks, but he never gets to fight because the parliamentarians never leave their ship. 

Angie: I just imagine him shaking his saber on the pier and, yeah. 

Theresa: Right. This pisses him all the way off, but he’s looking all the braver because, you know, he at least tried when nobody else would. The entourage, they’re headed from here. They’re headed to Oxford, but they stop along the way when the cavalry commander, Prince Rupert, decides to lead the royalist forces on some raids. 

Evidently at this time is probably when Jeffrey gets to, gets his first bout of fighting because shortly after this, he’s given the title captain of the horse. So he’s done something. He’s done something fabulous, right? 

He’s, he is now the captain. However, 1644, the queen and her court, they have to go back to France for their safety. Things back home in England, they’re super dicey, and it would, I mean, at this point, it’s only three years before Charlie One loses his head. So things are not looking hot. Right. Roman Catholic, French queen in Protestant England, when her husband is not the people’s favorite. 

Angie: And I’m kind of happy that she’s good at old. And I’m hoping she keeps her head. 

Theresa: Right. So they’re in France, and it was seen that our man does not get along with the brother of the queen’s master of horses. This is a man called Charles Croft. From, from all accounts, Croft is kind of a bully. And Jeffrey’s not feeling it, so he challenges him to a duel. And I think we’ve mentioned this before, but dueling has been outlawed by this time. Okay. In fact, probably almost 20 years, at least in France. 

Angie: So an entire generation. 

Theresa: Yeah. But like honor is honor, right? So the day of the duel, Charles shows up, but he doesn’t even bring a weapon. This, however, does not stop Jeffrey, who mounts the horse, charges towards his opponent and puts a bullet right through his forehead, killing him. Oh, okay. We have big feelings. 

We have big feelings. But he’s like, he’s a little screwed because he’s killed a man in a duel, which is not lawful. He’s killed a man, also not lawful. And he’s not just killed any man. He killed the brother of the master of arms. So technically, execution should have been his sentence, but the queen, who is still, you know, this is her friend, right? Like this has been her friend and basically surrogate son. 

Angie: Yeah, pretty much. 

Theresa: She’s like absolutely not. So the best she can do to lessen his sentence is exile him from France. So he gets to keep his head. He gets to keep his head. He starts out for home, and you are absolutely not going to believe this. But on his way home, his ship gets captured by Barbary pirates. 

Angie: Because what? Why the Barbary coast is not near there, though? 

Theresa: I don’t know why they were anywhere near France, but there you have it. His ship gets captured. 

Angie: I was going to say for a second, I was really doubting my education because I was like, my geography is so bad. 

Theresa: I just think they were on a world tour when they came across their ship. Now, what’s interesting about this is this may not be the first time he had actually been through something like this. 

Earlier when Queen Henrietta is about to give birth, one of the sources suggests that she sent him along with a small entourage back to France to bring her a midwife. 

Angie: Okay, so wait a minute. Wait a minute. I had to go back. I had to look up where the Barbary coast was. I guess it depends. When I think France, France and England, I tend to think like northern France, like the Calais area. But this could be northern Africa. I think fratacostria, Gibraltar, Morocco. Could have been. 

Theresa: I don’t know where they were staying when they were in France. Either way, you’re going to have to get on the water. 

Angie: It makes sense. It doesn’t make a ton of sense. 

Theresa: Maybe they were enjoying the Mediterranean. 

Angie: Yeah, maybe they went through the Transrabalter, which would put them near Algeria and all that. Okay. All right. I mean, I still have questions. 

Theresa: Okay. Well, I don’t have this particular answer for you, but what I will tell you is that one source suggests that when Queen Henrietta was getting ready to go into labor, so this would have been some years before, his boat had actually been attacked by pirates, but simply plundered. So this would have been time number two that he’s had to deal with piracy. Okay. However, this time they don’t let him go. They take him and they enslave him for the next 25 years. 

Angie: So he’s no way to do a day of hard labor. Yes. 

Theresa: No one knows anything about his time in captivity, but by 1669, we know he’s back in England. He’s hanging out in the county that he was born in. He’s about 50 years old and not long after he arrives home, the Queen passes away. 

Now, remember, she was raised Catholic and raised him as such. This isn’t a great look for him now. Not that it ever really was, but England is England and it’s going to do what he’s going to do. And for whatever reason, he decides he needs to head back to London and he is immediately recognized as a member of the former Catholic Queen’s household, thrown into jail where he stays for at least the next 10 years. 

Angie: This has been a rough period. He went from having a rather gilded childhood 

Theresa: to his adulthood just being the worst, right? He’s released some time after the 10-year mark and he dies as an outcast and buried in an unmarked grave in 1682. So that is the story of Jeffrey Hudson. Do you want to know what makes him so incredibly special? Yes. He lived this entire life at no point ever being over three feet, nine inches tall. 

Angie: You could have mentioned that earlier. 

Theresa: No, because, and this is why, I have spent a great deal thinking about how stories are framed and how we see history through our own lens. And I wanted to tell you the story so bad, but I wanted to see what the difference is between just telling you the story about a man and then telling you about the condition of the man. 

Angie: Well, but this helps me understand why he was so attractive, because I was just like, is this kid just the silver-tongued, like most smarmy little bastard that we’ve ever met? Or is he just the little tiny, swarmy little bastard? 

Theresa: He was all of those things. And I think that’s what’s so interesting about him, because we know that throughout history, right, that there have been particularly European royalty that find anybody that doesn’t look like them to be attractive for their menagerie. Yeah. 

That’s not okay. But what’s interesting about his particular case is that the queen truly adored him. He was charming, he was intelligent, but because of their society as it was, he felt, I think, as an adult, like he would never be seen as anything but this pet of the queen. 

Angie: I now understand why he was a slave for so long and then comes back and is like instantly recognized. 

Theresa: Yeah. Now, I had to do some weird-ass googling just to tell you this, because I can’t tell his story without telling you how he was introduced to the queen. They held a banquet and he was delivered to the queen in a pie. Okay. Okay. The pie arrives at the head of the table and it shimmies and it shakes and out pops he in a custom-made suit of armor. And she was immediately just in love and delighted by him. So I need you to know that there is in my Google record now, how do you bake a person into a pie without hurting them? 

Angie: Well, I mean, I feel like this was also around the same time that they would bake live birds into pies. Yes, it was. Yeah. And I’m assuming you used the same methods. Yes, you do. 

Theresa: The crust, the top crust is baked separate and then it’s done in a way that makes it airy and fluffy and you just place it over almost like a like a meringue would look, right? That big fluffy airiness and you would put it over top of whatever it is you’re baking quote unquote into the pie. Sure. 

Angie: So they that’s what they did for him. A pie box as opposed to yes. 

Theresa: And I just think every minute of this man’s life had to be wild. I mean, first of all, you can ride a horse and you’re not even four feet tall. So what accommodations had to be made? 

Angie: You’re under four feet tall and you decided to take a bro out for a duel. Mm hmm. When you have the reach of a four year old? He won though. He trampled the man and shot him. 

Theresa: He shot him. He never trampled him. Okay. He has a great shot because remember by the time he’s 14, he can hunt and shoot just 

Angie: like all the you know, he had a much better life than he did. Stayed the son of the butcher bullbater. 

Theresa: Well, you know, I was thinking about that too. I was thinking about that when I woke up this morning. Like his parents made the choice to send him with the Duke and Duchess of Buckingham. I’m assuming based on the idea that he’ll be well cared for, right? 

He will he’ll want for nothing. And I mean, for a huge chunk of his life, he didn’t. The Queen attended to everything he had ever wanted, right? 

He had his own servant, things like that. But I don’t know as far as, I mean, obviously, no one wants to be trapped by Barbary pirates and no one wants to go through a civil war and see the things that I’m sure he saw. But I don’t know that having the life in his circumstances of the child of a poor butcher would have been any better for him. 

Angie: I’m just thinking he probably had more opportunity. Maybe, you know. 

Theresa: What I think is wild about his story is the amount of connections that exist. Like, I spent so much time thinking about the Duke of Buckingham while writing the story that at some point in his career of charming the king and placating the Queen and all of the things he did to rise to become the Duke of Buckingham, that some point in his mind he was like, you know what? I’m going to bring them a child. 

Angie: Something they’ve never had before. 

Theresa: Yeah. What kind of money do you have to have in your wallet for that? 

Angie: I hope I never have enough money to think buying a child. I’m just going to float that out there. I think that’s too much money. You think? Well, that’s wild. Now my brain’s going a thousand different directions. Thanks. 

Theresa: Oh, I actually have artwork. I have a couple of the paintings because like I said, he sat for portraiture with the Queen. And if my screen will share. So this is one of them. You’ll notice that the landscape is designed to show his size. 

Angie: So she’s showing a child sized person in a red overcoat with balloony baggy pants. I believe pantaloons? Pantaloons. Knee high boots. Quite a scowl. He’s got kind of a pointy nose and he’s got like the bangs that start like it and two inches off his eyebrows. 

Theresa: Like it could have been a bowl cut, but we didn’t go all the way around. Yeah. 

Angie: And there’s yellow is the color of that time. It’s a very yellowy scene. He looks fairly jaundiced, but that could just be the golden light of the sun behind him painting everything and in the back of my liver hues. 

Theresa: Yeah, I think that is because you can see it in the trees too. There’s that one. 

Angie: Okay. So now we see he looks very childlike next to the Queen. 

Theresa: I think he was a child in this picture. I think he was still fairly young. I don’t think he was probably more than 15. 

Angie: He looks like he’s in the same outfit as the one before, but he’s sitting next to her in this very flowy blue gown and an obnoxiously small head. Yeah, the Queen has an obnoxiously small head. It looks like she’s, yeah, it’s been shrunk. 

Theresa: Compared to the coat, it looks like she’s wearing that winter coat your mother put on you when you absolutely did not want to wear it. 

Angie: Yeah. And she bought it that size so you could wear it for a couple of winters. She’s going to get her use out of it. Yep. That’s what that dress looks like. And then there is a drawing black and white where it looks like he’s next, Jeffrey’s next to a King. That’s Charles one. Charles one. 

Okay. In the one next to Charlie one, he’s knee high to Charlie one, but you have like the full royal gown and crest on his chest and the whole nine. 

Theresa: I think it’s interesting to show that in both of these, like, they’re both kind of heartbreaking photos because clearly the Queen, she adores him and she spends a lot of her time and her energy on his education and his upbringing and things like that. 

But I don’t know that she fully understood the capacity of humanity that this young man had because if you’ll see in the painting, like in both of these paintings, they still show him as a plaything. Like he has got a monkey on his shoulder with the Queen. And as standing next to the King, the King is made to look so much bigger. 

Angie: Well, it’s standing next to the King, but I wouldn’t, I don’t know, standing next to either one of these is the right thing. Standing slightly behind. You know, and that’s probably a visual device to show their superiority to the other people in the painting. Yeah, I think so. At the angle, but it’s still, I mean, I feel like relative five could also accomplish the same tactic. 

Theresa: Well, I just, it’s such an interesting time for humans as a whole this time because he’s a whole person, right? Like there’s nothing different about what he is than what she is. 

Yet they choose to treat people that look different, that were smaller or bigger or, you know, whatever the case may be as something to look at, as opposed to something to love. I don’t know if I’m doing a good, yeah. And so the other side to this story that I wanted to point out is that that’s not okay. Yeah, I appreciate that she did adore him and that she gave him the best life that he could have possibly had until it all went south, but that wasn’t her fault, right? Like the Civil War wasn’t her doing. Him being kidnapped by pirates wasn’t her doing. And I’m sure had things been different politically, he probably would have had the rest of his life in leisure with her. But it’s just, it’s an interesting thing to think of people with too much money and not enough sense. Yeah, wasn’t that too much too many dollars and not enough sense? 

Angie: You remind me like this story reminds me of, I can’t remember who it was, but somebody had, you know, the people when they have a genetic abnormality and so they create a ton of additional hair. 

Theresa: I can’t remember what it’s called, but isn’t that one of those persons is the basis for the beauty in the beast? Yes. 

Angie: And I think part of that, like that whole basis of that story is from a boy with that who somehow finds his way at court through the same kind of situation as Jeffrey Hudson here. And in the process, like is given a wife from the Queen, but the Queen does it to basically punish one of the members of her court. I’m marrying you to this beast kind of deal. And I know just enough to the story to really bastardize the entire thing. So I’ve got that going for me. 

Theresa: Hey, you know what? You know enough of that story to bastardize the entire thing. And I know about the Acadians because of the rock. 

Angie: So, okay, you know what? Fair. Fair. We got that going for us. So if you’d enjoyed our unhinged tales of the crazy little bits that we’ve just been compulsively reading about, right? Review, subscribe, come join us next week as we’re going to do this again, because that’s that’s what we do. That’s how we’re deciding to spend our Fridays with you. And on that note, goodbye. 

Theresa: Bye.