Queer history is often overlooked, but historian Gareth Russell wants LGBTQ+ people to know it unfolded at the very heart of British power. Speaking to PinkNews, Russell, author of Queen James, revealed that royal palaces were once home to relationships that were passionate, scandalous and physical, but also deeply emotional. At Hampton Court, King James I openly loved men.
Russell said that these were very open secrets, citing surviving letters where lovers described longing to “feel the King’s thighs in his arms again….It reminds us that same-sex love affairs and queer history weren’t all tragedy… There were moments of light, openness, grandeur and frivolity.” At Kensington Palace, Queen Anne was part of what Russell called a triangle of love, a story that inspired The Favourite.
The Tower of London holds a darker history. There was a gay blackmailing scandal that ended in murder, poisoned plots and court intrigue. And at Hillsborough Castle, the Queen Mother protected gay staff, once joking, “When you find a moment, could one of you old queens fetch this old queen her drink?” Russell says these stories matter because you get to make them as important as any straight royal romance—and they show how incredibly far things have come.
