80 Gays Around the World: Part 8) Persona Non Grata

Last time: 23) Harmodius and 24) Aristogeiton were killed rebelling against 25) Hipparchus (whose father-in-law, 26 Charmus of Kollyton had been sexual partner, at different times, to his brother 27 Hippias and father 28 Peisistratus) during the ritual torch relay to the Parthenon, whose main architect also created the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, which was particularly admired by 29) Caligula (12-41 AD).

29) Caligula (12-41 AD) has become one of the most notorious and eccentric of all the Roman Emperors. Among his sexual eccentricities were dating a Senator and a male actor at the same time, and allegedly committing incest with his sisters. The Senator even complained often about being exhausted by Caligula’s bedtime activities.

A lot of Caligula’s eccentricities can be misinterpreted. For example, the famous story of him making his favourite horse a senator could easily be thought of as a sign of madness. But it could also be interpreted as a jibe against what he thought was the standard of the debate and actions of the then Senate. He thought his horse would do a better job. I’m sure you’ve even made comments yourself that a horse or something could do a better job than your local politician.

Like many Roman Emperors (and a couple of Presidents in 2026), Caligula had an over-inflated opinion of themselves. One of his egomaniac projects was to have all the statues of Greek gods and heroes transported from Greece to Rome. There they would have their heads removed and replaced with carved portraits of his own head. One of these statues was that of Zeus at Olympia.

However, the statue of Zeus, or maybe Zeus himself, who knows, made it known that it thought of Caligula’s plan. The Greek writer Suetonius writes that scaffolding was erected around the statue and workmen were preparing to disassemble it for transportation to Rome. It was at this point that the workmen heard the sound of laughter coming from the statue. The laughter was so loud and hard that the scaffolding collapsed. The workmen ran off in terror and swore never to return to finish their task. This is probably one of those apocryphal stories that were popular at the time.

After Caligula’s assassination his successor and the Roman Senate wanted to make sure that he was erased from history. In Rome there was a process called “damnatio memoriae”, which means “damnation of memory”, a kind of ancient “cancel culture”.

Modern cancel culture has led to many statues and memorials have been defaced of removed from public sight because of that person’s supposed link to an issue that goes against the personal beliefs of an activist. In the instance of Caligula’s “damnatio memoriae”, all his statues, portraits and inscriptions were to be defaced and his properties seized by the state. The Senate wanted to ensure that that no-one ever heard about him again. Luckily, there are many surviving records, like the writings of Suetonius mentioned above, and things like coins across the Roman Empire and beyond that testified to his existence.

A lot of the statues and busts of Caligula were simply thrown in to rivers. Many of them were re-cut in order to change the resemblance from Caligula to another emperor. Above is one of many examples of Caligula’s face being re-sculpted into that of his successor, Claudius (currently in the archaeological museum at the site of Carsulae, Umbrio, Italy; photos by Eric R. Varner, “The Digital Sculpture Project”, 2013). The front view is obviously more successful than the side view.

How ironic. The emperor who wanted to removed the heads of gods from statues and replace them with sculptures of his own head, ended up having his face removed from his own statues and replaced.

Other regimes throughout history have tried to erase the evidence of a person’s existence or presence purely because of a difference of opinion or politics. Not all of them went as far as complete obliteration from the records as attempted by Rome. You’ve probably seen footage of statues to dictators being knocked down following a coup.

The USSR, of the Soviet Union (1922-1991), was one of the most notorious regimes for removing people from their records. One of the most famous cases was that of 30) Nikolai Yetzov (1895-1940).

Nikolai Yezhov was the People’s Commisar (Chairman) of the Party Control Commission of the Central Committee, or NKVD (what preceded the dreaded KGB). In effect he was head of the Soviet secret police.

In 1937 he became responsible for what is known as the Great Purge, or Yezhovshchina (the Age of Yezhov). He became one of those gay men who should never become a role model.

The Great Purge was called by Soviet leader Josef Stalin to deal with any opposition or criticism of his leadership. Any member of the Communist Party could be arrested and executed at Yezhov’s command, including their wives and children. Ethnic groups and the Russian Intelligentsia were also targeted. Most of the non-political prisoners were sent to the Gulag labour camps. During the first year of the Purge over half a million people were sent to the Gulags. When the Gulags became too overcrowded Yezhov ordered prisoners to be executed.

Eventually, but only after about 1.2 million people were killed, did Stalin think that Yezhov had over-stepped his authority and was doing more harm than good for the Communist Party. Yezhov’s undoing was his attempt to arrest the leader of the Georgian branch of the NKVD. The suspect convinced Stalin to help him overthrow Yezhov. Yezhov knew that his days were numbered and he resigned in November 1938. He was arrested five months later.

Yezhov confessed (probably by force) to incompetence and that the Great Purge had led to crimes against the state. He even confessed to being gay and having a string of homosexual partners, despite being married. He was found guilty and executed on 4th February 1940.

What connects Nikolai Yezhov to Caligula is what happened after his death. Because Yezhov has no statues erected to him, the only method available at the time to remove his image was to remove him from all official photographs, particularly ones which showed him with Stalin and other senior Soviet politicians, like the “before and after” example below.

During his arrest and confession to homosexual activity he admitted to having an affair with another leading Soviet figure, 31) Filipp Goloshchyokin (1876-1941).

Like Yezhov, Goloshchyokin has been named as the man responsible for the deaths of over a million of his own countrymen. He was from Kazakhstan, at the time a constituent “republic” of the Soviet Union. By 1925 he had become the virtual dictator of Kazakhstan. Stalin introduced his policy of collectivisation of agriculture, effectively forcing all peasant families to stop producing food for themselves and making them work for state-run farms with dozens of other families. The theory behind this was that it produced more food for equal distribution around the Soviet Union, in particular for the growing industrial urban centres. The actual effect was that it deprive rural peasants of their livestock and not producing enough food for them to live on. The result was widespread famine.

Under Golshchyokin’s zealous implementation of this policy an estimated 2 million Kazakhs died of starvation, 40% of the population, because most of the food they produced went to the cities.

It was at the beginning of this policy that Goloshchyokin met and had an affair with Nikolai Yezhov. During the Great Purge Goloshchyokin was sure he was safe as long a Yezhov was running the NKVD. Not long after Yezhov was arrested and admitted to their affair Goloshchyokin was also arrested. He, too, was executed.

Yet, the general public are unaware of the Kazakh Famine, or of Goloshchyokin’s role in it. What they might know more about is a previous massacre that he was personally responsible for – the assassination of Tsar Nicholas II and the imperial Romanov family. Goloshchuokin’s role in the massacre was as the principal captor of the Tsar and his immediate family in Tsarskoye Selo. In fact, he was the man in charge of arranging the killings and disposal of the bodies.

This event is well-known, but what people often forget is that some Romanovs survived, and some were murdered even before the 1917 Russian Revolution by previous revolutionary assassins. One of the victims was 32) Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich Romanov (1857-1905).

Next time: Pride and prejudice in Moscow.

(Not Quite) 80 Gays Around the World: 1) Love in the Stars

This time last year I began researching for the next edition of my “Around the World in 80 Gays” series. It was my intention to have it complete and ready for serialisation this year. However, the Beijing Winter Olympics and Birmingham Commonwealth Games slowed down that research because of an explosion of interest and inclusion in competing lgbt+ athletes at both events. Between them these games provided almost a hundred new names to research and catalogue.

By the end of last year I decided that I had done enough research on “80 Gays” to produce a shortened version, “(Not Quite) 80 Gays Around the World” Not every part of the serialisation has been written, and I am trying to expand it with more names as I go along, so I can’t say for sure how many names I will end up with.

The format will remain the same as in previous editions. Each individual will be numbered so that you (and I) can keep track of how far through the list of names we are. The first three names are of people we’ve encountered before on this blog and they are all connected by love relationships, which is quite appropriate considering yesterday was what is popularly and mistakenly celebrated as St. Valentine’s Day (see here to discover why it’s the wrong St. Valentine and the wrong date). So without further ado, here’s the new “Around the World in (Not Quite) 80 Gays.

1) The Roman Emperor Hadrian (76-138) is one of the more well-known of the gay emperors. Last year we celebrated the 1900th anniversary of his visit to Britain and the construction of the famous wall named after him.

It was on his continuing travels around his empire after laving Britain that Hadrian is believed to have first met the young 2) Antinuos (c.111-c.130) in Claudiopolis (now called Bolu, a city in northern Turkey). It is assumed that Antinous was born in the area.

If estimates of Antinous’s birth are correct he would have been no more than 12 years old when he and Hadrian met 1900 years ago in 123. Hadrian, who was in his 40s, was a big fan of Greek culture, so taking Antinous as a boy lover would not strike him as being questionable, unlike it would today. Even so, there were many critics of Hadrian’s lifestyle who thought the relationship was morally wrong. One of the theories concerning Antinous’s mysterious early death in the River Nile is based on this criticism, that it was a murder to ensure the relationship stopped for good. Other theories include accidental death, political assassination, ritual sacrifice, and suicide.

Hadrian’s grief at the death of his young lover, who was not yet 20 years old, was overwhelming. Back in 2011, in the first of my “Star Gayzing” series (was it really that long ago?) I mentioned some of the tributes Hadrian created for Antinous. In that article I concentrated on the constellation Hadrian “created” and how this was to show Antinous as a new 3) Ganymede.

Ganymede was also a youth who became the lover of an older man, in this case the god Zeus. He became a very popular subject in art during ancient and classical Greece, and also from the Renaissance through to the present day. Both Antinous and Ganymede were immortalised as constellations, with Ganymede becoming Aquarius. Both young men have been inspirations for gay men’s organisations and brotherhoods, and both were deified after their deaths by their lovers. Because of Ganymede’s greater and longer significance he has more statues and images than of Antinous. He remains more prominent in modern gay male culture.

There are many directions I could take from Ganymede in our “Not Quite 80 Gays” journey, but the one I have chosen is through literature, after all, the Greek myths are only known to us through ancient writings.

The modern publication which will take us further is called “An Asian Minor: The True Story of Ganymede” by an American author called 4) Felice Picano (b.1944), and we will learn more about him and his works in a few weeks’ time.

What a Way To Go!

The covid pandemic has made a lot of us think about death more often, especially, as in my case, close members of your family have passed away in the last twelve months. Most of us hope for a peaceful and painless death but some are less fortunate. Some of the most horrific deaths have been caused by war, murder or natural accident. The lgbt community still suffers murderous attacks because of our genders and sexual identities.

There’ll never be an appropriate time to ignore death and it’s more ironic and unusual causes, those that are so weird, bizarre or unique that they stand out. No doubt you’ve heard of the Darwin Awards. Named after Charles Darwin these are imaginary awards given to people who, through their own mistakes, have removed themselves from the human gene pool permanently.

Below are examples of unusual causes of deaths in the lgbt community. Not all of them qualify for a Darwin Award but are no less notable. With one exception I am excluding murders and suicides that were deliberate or premeditated.

Sir Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St. Alban (1561-1626) – statesman, scientist and philosopher. Perhaps Bacon’s death is one of the most famous Darwin Awards, despite it being questioned in recent years. It was Bacon’s scientific curiosity that led to his demise. On a cold and snowy afternoon in March 1626 Bacon was riding in his carriage just outside London when he had an idea. Could snow preserve meat? So, he stopped the carriage and obtained a dead chicken for a nearby household (most people kept chickens in those days) and began stuffing and packing it with snow. I suppose he took the chicken back home with him to observe the effects, but he never got to find out if he was right. He caught a chill which soon developed into bronchitis and he died about a week later.

Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) – French composer, pioneer of modern opera and military bands. Lully was Master of the King’s Music to Louis XIV of France. In those days the conductor of an orchestra didn’t wave a baton around. They kept time by tapping a staff on the floor (orchestras were quite small in those days so musicians could easily see and hear the staff tapping). This staff evolved into the big ornamental staffs that leaders of marching bands carry today. In late 1686 King Louis XIV recovered from surgery and Lully decided to celebrate by organising a performance of his “Te Deum”. During a rehearsal he stabbed himself in the foot with his conducting staff. Blood poisoning and gangrene set in and he died. This cause of death, like that of Sir Francis Bacon’s, has been questioned in recent years.

Arrhichion (d.564 BC) – Olympic champion in the sport of pankration, a mixture of boxing and wrestling in which virtually anything goes. Arrhichion was a native of the city of Phigalia. Like all ancient Greek athletes he would undoubtedly have become the boy-lover of an older athlete during his training and took a boy-lover of his own when he got older. At the 52nd Olympic Games in 572 BC he became champion for the first time. He successfully defended his title at the next games and was hot favourite to win it three times in a row. He made it to his third Olympic final in 564 BC. His opponent, whose name we don’t know, got the upper hand in the final round. He wrapped his legs around Arrhichion and put him in a strangle hold. Arrhichion managed to free one of his legs and trapped his opponent’s foot behind his knee. He twisted his leg so sharply that his opponent was in so much agony that he surrendered. Arrhichion had won his third title. Unfortunately, by this time he had lost consciousness due to the strangle hold and died. The victor’s wreath was placed on his dead body. Incidentally, the oldest known statue of an Olympic champion is believed to be of Arrhichion. It is currently on display at the museum at Olympia.

Tiberius, Emperor of Rome (42 BC- 37 AD) died twice – sort of. This is the exception to my “no premeditated murder” rule. Despite being emperor he lived his final years in semi-retirement at his villa on Capri. There he allegedly trained young boys to nibble at bits of him when he went swimming! He was an old man by this time, and as he was approaching his 78th birthday he began to show signs that he was dying. Courtiers gathered around his bed and watched him breathe his last breath. At the villa was Caligula and the courtiers wasted no time in proclaiming him the new emperor. Meanwhile, Tiberius began to revive! Reports of what happened next vary but they all agree on one thing. To ensure that Caligula was the legal emperor someone smothered Tiberius with his own bedclothes. This time they made sure he was dead.

Pietro Aretino (1492-1556) was an Italian satirist, playwright, blackmailer and self-proclaimed sodomite. He was once described as the Father of Pornographic Literature. His death, like that of Tiberius, has several variations but the ultimate cause is the same in all of them. One account says that he was at a party hosted by his sister when someone told a very risqué or rude joke. Pietro laughed so much that he couldn’t breathe. He fell backwards off his chair and smashed his head on the floor. Whether is was his inability to breathe or his head smashing on the floor that caused his death at least he died with a smile on his face.

The same cannot be said of Isadora Duncan (1877-1727), the bisexual American dancer and dance teacher whose death is one of the most well-known in the theatrical world. She was staying in the south of France and accepted a lift in an open-topped car. One of her friends advised her to put on a coat because the evening was a bit chilly, but Isadora refused, preferring instead to wear a long scarf. As the car sped away the flowing end of the scarf got caught in the spokes of a rear wheel and yanked Isadora from the back seat, throwing her onto the road, breaking her neck.

I’m sure none of us would like to endure these death, except perhaps Pietro Aretino’s. The world will never be short of unusual deaths as long as there is an infinite number of possibilities of passing away. I hope I “meet my maker” in the same manner as my grandfather – peacefully in bed at the age of 101.

80 More Gays Around the World: Part 8) Life Becomes Deadly

Last time on “80 More Gays”: 19) Bilal Hassani (b.2000), an entry into the Eurovision Song Contest, had alarming similarities to a fictional character in a comedy parodying ISIS, whose flag has also been parodied and generated a reaction more often associated with the Nazi flag, whose swastika was adopted by 20) Alfred Schuler (1865-1923), who wanted to cure the madness of 21) Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) with a ritual dance to the Mother Goddess 22) Cybele.

22) Cybele originated as an Earth Mother goddess in Phrygia (the Turkey-Syria region) called Kybele and had been venerated for many centuries before both Inanna and Ishtar, fertility goddesses I mentioned in a recent article. With the spread of Greek colonisation, and later Roman expansion, a select number of myths about Kybele found their way into the Greek and Roman pantheons and she became known as Cybele, and Magna Mater, the Great Mother, and in this aspect she was impersonated by 20) Alfred Schuler in his neo-pagan rituals.

The cult of Cybele became the state religion of the Roman Empire at the end of the 3rd century BC. Natural disasters effecting the empire at that time were seen as omens of bad luck and the Senate sought advice from oracles. The advice given was to adopt the cult of Cybele and she will protect them.

In an event reminiscent of one I recounted in “The Meteorite Who Became A God” a black stone that personified Cybele, also likely to have been a meteorite, was brought to Rome from its home in Pessinos, Phrygia, and placed in a newly constructed temple. Cybele’s arrival in Rome was celebrated with an annual festival called Megalesia on 4th April, the date of her arrival.

With the cult of Cybele came her accompanying rites, priests and associated deities. Primary among these were the galli, her third gender and eunuch priests, and an associated deity called 23) Agdistis.

The Phrygians originally regarded Kybele and Agdistis to be the same deity. Agdistis was also introduced into Greek and Roman mythology as the intersex offspring of the Sky Father and the Earth Mother. The intersex nature of Agdistis disturbed the Greek and Roman gods and they removed Agdisits’s male sexual organs. The deity was then known as Kybele. I go into more detail about the origin of Agdistis in an article I wrote in 2013 called “The Gallae: Ancient and Modern – Part 1: Ancient”. Rather than repeat it all here I suggest you pop over to that article and come back to continue here.

The Greek interpretation of Agdistis gave rise to the myth of the creation of the almond tree. The almond is native to the region where Kybele, Agdistis and Attis were venerated, which would explain why the Greeks didn’t have their own native legends about its origin. Almond was a highly regarded plant with semi-mystical qualities which influenced even Hebrew belief. There is even a theory that the halo around saints heads often depicted in Christian art originated as an almond shape.

Almond blossom

The Bible gives several examples of how almond flowers indicated divine favour. One story involves Aaron’s Rod, the staff belonging to Moses’s brother. It sprouted almond flowers as a sign of favour from God as his choice of priests from the tribes of Israel. Also, if the Israelites followed God the flowers on one side would bear sweet almonds. If they didn’t the flowers on the other side would produce bitter almonds.

This dual nature of almonds, on the one hand a sign of favour and on the other a sign of displeasure, brings us on to one of the most well-known clichés in modern whodunit murder mysteries – the bitter almond smell associated with cyanide poisoning. How strange is it that a plant whose mythical origins come from severed sexual organs, the origin of life itself, can also be a means of death.

Cyanide poisoning is a frequent method of suicide. It is also the main component of the gas used by the Nazis in their horrific gas chambers. It is assumed that the gay computer scientist Alan Turing (number 1 in my original “80 Gays” series in 2015) took his own life by cyanide.

A less well-known suicide by cyanide poisoning occurred three and a half years later when a British climber, 24) John Menlove Edwards (1910-1958) took his own life.

Next time of “80 More Gays”: We climb new heights and go to the top of the world to fight sexual abuse.

Hadrian's Beard

Have you noticed how the fashion in men’s facial hair keeps changing? You can almost tell which decade a particular style of beard comes from. History has some famous examples (William Shakespeare, Charles Darwin).

Just over nineteen hundred years ago there was a time and person to whom a specific change in beard fashion can be attributed. The year was 117 AD and the man was the Roman emperor Hadrian (76-138), pictured below. It was because he was the emperor that his preferred style of beard became fashionable.

In the main Romans considered beards as “un-Roman”. Around the empire there were various traditional hair styles used by the inhabitants of the conquered nations (think Asterix the Gaul), but if you wanted to be considered a citizen of the Roman Empire you were clean-shaven. Some younger male Romans had neatly-trimmed beards, perhaps as a sign of reaching manhood. Older Romans tended to have no beard at all.

Roman emperors had preferred to be depicted as clean-shaven, as can be seen from their coins and statues. Below is a composite of the depictions of emperors in chronological order. Note the absence of beards before him and the preponderance of beards after him.

In pre-imperial times beards were common. As the empire expanded Romans began to see themselves as superior to the conquered nations, and to have a beard like their conquered people meant they were just as inferior as them. So, beards became of sign of barbarity and uncivilised communities.

The words “barbarity” and “barbarian” were Greek in origin and meant someone who didn’t speak Greek. They “babbled”, and the Greek for that was “barbaros”. The meaning was extended to any behaviour that was considered un-Greek and uncivilised. Ironically, it was the Greeks who influenced Hadrian in his choice of un-Roman “barbaric” facial hair.


ven though the Romans had a low opinion of anyone with a beard they hero-worshipped the ancient Greek philosophers who were always depicted with bushy beards. Most of these philosophers followed the traditional practise of having beardless boy-lovers, and had themselves been boy-lovers to older men.

This boy-lover tradition appealed to Hadrian. In general the Romans were opposed to such relationships but Hadrian was living during a period of Hellenisation in the empire which was to blossom during his reign through his influence.

This Hellenisation was actually sparked by Greece itself. There was a move among the Romanised Greek aristocracy to re-adopt the dress and styles of earlier ages to re-assert their Greekness. Through Roman influence the Greeks were also generally beardless, but around the beginning of the first millennium they began start to dress like ancient Greeks and grow beards. These became popular even among the populace. Big, bushy philosopher beards were everywhere, and you didn’t need to be a wise philosopher to grow one.

Hadrian knew Greece well. He had spent time in Athens as Archon, the appointed ruler, in 112 following the death of his mentor Sura. There were some political machinations against Sura’s supporters and Hadrian seems to have been pushed off to Greece to keep him out of Roman politics (he had been made a Roman consul in 108). This actually worked in Hadrian’s favour, and by the time the political situation had died down and he was recalled to Rome he had become enamoured of the Greek way of life. Perhaps this was when he began to grow his beard.

Hadrian’s political career got back on track on his return to Rome. He became a trusted companion and military commander to the emperor Trajan. When Trajan died on 7th August 117 Hadrian was popularly acclaimed as his successor. Hadrian kept his beard, neatly trimmed and fashionably styled. Beards were back! His Hellenisation of the Roman Empire was just as popular.

For almost a century Hadrian’s successors had beards of various lengths. Even the teenage emperors such as Elegabalus had wispy beards. The only ones who didn’t were Emperor Geta, and Diadumenian who was made co-emperor at the age of 9 by his father Emperor Macrinus. They were both killed the following month. From the reign of Elegabalus’s successor, Severus Alexander, onwards beards came and went. When the Roman Empire was converted to Christianity by Emperor Constantine the Great in 313 beards went out of fashion once more. Very few emperors were depicted with facial hair after that.

Who knows what would have happened if Hadrian didn’t keep his beard. Perhaps beards would never have become “civilised”, after all the Roman Empire continued for about another 300 years after his death and its influence would have lasted well into the so-called Dark Ages. Maybe beards never would have become popular. Who knows?

For people like myself with some form of facial hair we have much to thank a gay emperor for turning the beard from the facial adornment of barbarians into the fashionable style for the respectable and civilised gentleman. What’s more, next month’s Movember charity (where men grow beards to raise awareness and funds for male cancer research) may never have been invented.

Game of Gay Thrones: Part 3

When I wrote my original “Game of GayThrones” article in 2017 about lgbt claimants and pretenders to royal thrones I didn’t think there’d be any more. How wrong I was. Here I am with my third group, and there’s enough for a fourth next year. So, let’s get straight into it and find out about these other possible lgbt monarchs.

1) Hierocles (d.222) – proposed Emperor of Rome.

Hierocles was a Roman slave and the boy-lover to a future emperor, Gordian, but it is another emperor who proposed Hierocles as his heir. Gordian recognised Hierocles’ athletic abilities (I wonder how!) and taught him chariot racing. It was during a race that Hierocles came to the attention of the 19-year old Emperor Elegabalus.

During the race Hierocles fell out off his chariot right in front of the royal box (I don’t believe in coincidence). His helmet flew off to reveal his fresh young face and blond hair. Elegabalus was instantly aroused and wasted no time at all in rushing down to help the youth to his feet and whisk him off for a night of passion.

Now a freed slave and favourite male lover of the emperor Hierocles found himself as the “husband” in a same-sex marriage (Elegabalus was a hereditary High Priest, so he could perform any marriage he wanted). Unfortunately, Elegabalus wanted to make his “husband” his Caesar, effectively his imperial heir. Even Elegabalus’s politically powerful grandmother objected and persuaded him to nominate his cousin as Caesar instead. But for a while Hierocles was in the running for successor to the Roman Emperor.

It wasn’t that much later that the Praetorian Guard tired of Elegabalus’s ineffective rule and assassinated both him and Hierocles. The cousin became the new emperor.

2) César de Bourbon, 1st Duke of Vendôme (1594-1665) – progenitor of the bloodline of the current pretender to the Jacobite throne of Great Britain.

Here we deal with the most hypothetical claim to any throne I’ve mentioned. César was the eldest son of King Henri IV of France. However, he was born illegitimate and thus ineligible to succeed to the throne, even after he was legitimised in 1595. Consequently, César’s legitimately-born younger half-brother succeeded their father as King Louis XIII.

For most of King Louis’ reign César was involved in plots against the king’s chief ministers, Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin. The king exiled César several times, but they were eventually reconciled the year before Louis’ death in 1643. It is unlikely César had any plan to become king in place of his half-brother, only to replace his chief ministers.

César was reputedly bisexual. His town house in Paris was nicknamed the Hôtel de Sodome (House of Sodom). He married a wealthy duchess and it is through their heir that we encounter the Jacobite throne of Great Britain (mentioned in the first “Gay Thrones” article).

Cesar’s eventual heir was his great-grandson the King of Sardinia. The king married a French princess, the cousin of Prince Henry Stuart, the gay Jacobite “King Henry IX”. The son of the Sardinian king and queen thus became heir to both the Jacobite “Henry IX” and César, Duke of Vendome.

Let’s add more queerness – a more recent Jacobite heir, Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, was the heir of the gay King Ludwig II of Bavaria, so that’s three gay/bisexual men whose bloodline heirs eventually meet and are held by the current Jacobite claimant, the Duke of Bavaria.

3) Prince Philipp von Hessen, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (1896-1980) – heir presumptive to the thrones of Finland and Chatti.

After the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire several Prince-Electors, a group of German princes who elected the Emperor’s successor, became kings by international treaty. Prince Philipp’s ancestor, Wilhelm II, Prince-Elector of Hesse, declared himself King of Chatti, the name of an ancient tribe who once lived in the Hesse region. An international congress of 1818 denied him this claim. A hundred years later his descendant Prince Philipp became heir to this rejected throne.

A real throne was available to Prince Philipp by this time. After World War I the newly independent Finland decided to become a monarchy. The parliament elected Prince Philipp’s father, Prince Friedrich Karl, as their first king. By now the Prince-Elector title had been dropped and Friedrich Karl was using the original family title of Landgrave (a high-ranking count) of Hesse-Kassel.

Philipp had a twin brother called Wolfgang, so did they become joint Crown Princes of Finland? It was decided that Philipp, the elder twin, would become Landgrave and Head of the Princely House of Hesse. Wolfgang would become Crown Prince of Finland. However, less than two months after making the offer the Finns decided to become a republic.

Recent biographies of Prince Philipp have suggested he was bisexual. He married and had several children. Like many influential aristocrats Philipp joined the Nazi party in the early 1930s and, also like many influential aristocrats, criticised Hitler’s regime during World War II. Philip’s father-in-law, the King of Italy, arrested the Italian fascist leader Mussolini in 1943 and Hitler believed Philipp was involved. Consequently Philipp and his wife were imprisoned in concentration camps, where his wife died. After being freed by US troops Philipp was held prisoner for another two years for his former role as Governor of Hesse under Hitler.

Finnish monarchists considered Crown Prince Wolfgang to be their king until his death without children in 1989. Prince Philipp predeceased him, but monarchists regarded him as heir presumptive, and the monarchists consider the throne of Finland passed to Philipp’s son.

4) Prince Manvendra Gohil Singh (b.1965) – heir to the Maharajah of Rajpipla.

Prince Manvendra is the only living male lgbt heir to a sovereign throne (I’ll mention the only living female heir to another throne in the next Gay Thrones article next year). The prince made headline news in 2006 when he came out publicly as gay.

The throne of Rajpipla in western India dates back to 1200. Under British rule the Maharaja of Rajpipla was accorded the style of His Highness. After India became independent in 1947 Rajpipla was merged with the Bombay Presidency. Indian maharajas retained their titles until the Indian government withdrew recognition of them in 1971. Even though no longer officially royal the many princely families in India are often still referred to by their former titles as a courtesy, as is also the case with deposed European royal dynasties.

Prince Manvendra will, in all probability, adopt the unofficial style of Maharaja of Rajpipla after the death of his father, even if Indian law doesn’t recognise it. No doubt he will still be referred to as a “gay Maharaja” in the media.

Game of Gay Thrones II

A lot of people, and media publicity, has been raving about the end (thankfully!) of “Game of Thrones”. Like the majority of television viewers I’ve never seen it. Apart from the fact that I can’t afford the subscription, nothing in any preview or interview has told me what the series is actually about, so nothing has got me interested in it. What clips I have seen had very little acting in them, and even then it was the worst ham acting that isn’t even worthy of “Scooby Doo”.

However, it does give me an excuse to celebrate the long-overdue demise of an over-hyped programme by presenting a follow-up to my “Game of Gay Thrones” article which featured five lgbt claimants and pretenders to various crowns. There are actually enough lgbt wannabe monarchs to stretch the theme into three more articles. So here is the second.

Several of today’s pretenders can be described as hypothetical. There are different reasons why they may never have been actual claimants to a throne, but they have, to some extent, been considered as heirs, one way or another.

Let’s have a look at them in chronological order.

1) Gaius Nymphidius Sabinus (c.35-68 AD), claimant to the throne of the Roman Empire. During the reign of Emperor Nero Gaius was a Prefect of the Praetorian Guard, the elite unit of the Imperial army. Although he was the son and grandson of freed slaves Gaius managed to rise in power thanks to the uncovering on a conspiracy to assassinate Nero. After Nero eventually did die Gaius began claiming to be an illegitimate son of a previous emperor, Caligula. To secure his claim Gaius married Nero’s widowed male empress Sporus (it is said that Nero’s body was still burning on his funeral pyre when the marriage took place, Gaius was obviously wasting no time). While it doesn’t necessarily indicate that Gaius had any sexual interest in young Sporus, it is known that Roman emperors indulged in pederastic activity, and as a member of the Praetorian Guard Gaius may even have formed a sexual relationship with a younger soldier. Both activities were influenced by the ancient Greeks. As a Roman soldier Gaius wasn’t allowed to get married anyway, so as soon as Nero was out of the way he married someone with an imperial title and rank to boost his claim to the throne. The only other surviving spouse of Nero was a rather dull woman with no power or influence. However, a rival to the throne, Galba, was approaching Rome with an army and the Praetorian Guard considered him a better prospect as emperor than Gaius, so they murdered Gaius and put Galba on the throne instead.

2) St. Boris, Prince of Rostov (990-1015), regarded by some during his lifetime as the preferred successor to his father Vladimir, Grand Prince of Kiev. I wrote a bit about St. Boris twice before, most recently here. Succession to the throne of Kiev was not by male-preferred primogeniture (as the throne of the UK was until recently) but was often decided by which of the nearest male relatives on the reigning monarch was the most powerful. Rivalry between brothers often resulted in one assassinating the others. This is the case with St. Boris. Grand Prince Vladimir, who converted to Christianity and founded the Russian Orthodox Church, had twelve sons. Not all of them shared their father’s new faith so you can imagine some of them were keen to ensure that their father’s successor was a pagan (none of the Christian sons had any intention of killing off their brothers). This meant that any brother who converted to Christianity was a threat. Boris was a popular ruler in his own principality of Rostov, a popularity which may also alarmed his pagan brothers. This is what eventually led to St. Boris’s assassination in 1015 by his brother.

3) Prince Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Condé (1621-1686), claimant to the throne of Poland-Lithuania – twice. I’ve also written about the Duke before regarding his attempts to be elected king in last year’s “Around the World in Another 80 Gays”. You can read the details there.

4) Harry Domela (1905-1979) claimed to be Prince Wilhelm of Germany, grandson and heir to Kaiser Wilhelm II. He was, in fact, a Latvian-Russian of German ancestry. After World War I Harry moved to Germany where he began to claim various false identities. He was imprisoned several times for being an imposter but this didn’t stop him. He managed to make the acquaintance of several German aristocrats and made such an impression that they thought he was Prince Wilhelm of Germany travelling incognito. There was some resemblance between the two and Harry did nothing to deny it. In fact he willingly went along with it and began adopting the lifestyle that implied he was the disinherited heir to the German empire. This was in despite of the fact that the real Prince Wilhelm was studying at the University of Bonn at the time. Very shrewdly Harry kept well away from people and places where the real Prince would likely to be known. It wasn’t long before Harry was uncovered as a fraud and once again arrested in 1926. While in prison he wrote his autobiography “A Sham Prince”. The courts decided his imposture was harmless and released him. His book sold well, and he even starred as himself in a 1927 film and a play. During this period he lodged in the guest rooms of the Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin. Openly gay and something of an enigmatic figure after the 1930s Harry had many other adventures, often accompanied by French gay writer André Gide. I’m sure I’ll write about them in the future. Incidentally, the real Prince Wilhelm renounced his rights to the German throne in 1933.

5) James Knight Ord III (b.1976), claimed by perpetually unreliable and homophobic “Daily Mail” and “Mail Online” as the “true heir to the British throne” in an article in 2016. I debunked this claim in this article in which I give proof with actual documentary evidence, something any experienced Daily Mail journalist could have researched for themselves. Last year Mr. Ord himself contacted this blog to welcome my research. He had been aware of his family legend of an illegitimate descent from King George IV of Britain, but has not paid any serious attention to it.

In October I’ll present another set of lgbt claimants and pretenders.