Episode 27 - Two Amorous Turtles

Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant
Episode 27 - “Two Amorous Turtles”
Published on January 18, 2022

Note: This transcript was generated by Otter.ai with light human correction

Kathryn Gehred 

Hello, and welcome to Your Most Obedient and Humble Servant. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up before this episode, that this episode includes mentions of slavery, of brutality and of sexual violence. Again, not something that's surprising when you're talking about slaveholders from this time, but maybe that's something that you want to be startled with while you're driving to work.

Hello, and welcome to Your Most Obedient and Humble Servant. This is a Women's History podcast where we feature eighteenth and early nineteenth century women's letters that don't get as much attention as we think they should. I'm your host, Katherine Gehred. This week's episode is Part Two of the very exciting and much anticipated Martha Washington's in-laws series. Martha Washington's in-laws, you might be thinking to yourself, wouldn't that be George Washington's parents? No, it's the parents and ancestry of Martha Washington's first husband, Daniel Parke Custis. Now, I'm going to open this episode with a poem that was not written by but was falsely attributed to William Byrd II, or as he sometimes known, William Byrd of Westover, because that's the name of the house that he lived in. Now, he didn't actually write this poem, but this poem was found in his handwriting, so it's something that he thought was worthwhile to save, and he probably copied it out of a newspaper or from one of his friends, something like that. So, with no further ado, here's a poem it's called

"'Upon a Fart.' Gentlest blast of ill concoction reverse of high ascending belch, the only stink abhorred by Scotch men beloved and practiced by the Welsh. Softest note of inward griping sir Reverend blanks finest part so fine. It needs no pains of wiping except it be a brewers fart. Swiftest ease of colic pain, vapor from a secret stench is rattled by the unread Swain, but whispered by the bashful winch, shapeless fart, we nare can show the but in the noble female sport, in which by burning blue, we know the the amusement of the maids at court."

I just thought that would set the tone a little bit for the way history as discussed, William Byrd II, now, again, he didn't write this poem, but it was something that he thought was worthwhile to record. It was misattributed to him because they found it in his handwriting. And people who weren't familiar with it, assumed that he had written it, what we know about William Byrd, it would not at all be surprising if this was a poem that he had written, but it's also a sort of satire of another poem that was popular, that was called "Upon a sye," and it was about love, and it was by a woman. So, somebody like William Byrd wouldn't be able to let a woman write a poem and not make fun of it. So I just thought I'd get that out of the way first, before we really get into the meat of this episode. Okay, so this is week two of the multi part series on Martha Washington's in-laws, and the first part of this series we discussed Martha Washington's first husband's grandfather, Daniel Parke, he was described by one historian as a "slashing blade," he wreaked havoc wherever he went. In the last episode, we discussed a letter from Daniel Parke's wife, so Martha Washington's first husband's grandmother, to her husband, basically saying, we're done. You can send me as little money as you want, but I'm going to go try to support myself and not take care of your plantation anymore. I just need to get your daughters, our daughters, married off to successful men. And at the time, she wrote that letter, her daughters were actively being courted by two of what she described as the best men in the colony, William Byrd II, and John Custis IV. These are two people who are sort of big names in Virginian colonial history. You may if you have visited Colonial Williamsburg gone to John Custis IV, you may have heard quite a bit about his garden. You might not know quite as much about William Byrd. He's sort of somebody who is he's a favorite of historians of this era. What makes William Byrd such a favorite amongst historians is that he was considered one of the very few early colonial Virginian writers and poets, and he left behind a ton of letters and documents. One of these documents was a diary that was written in code, and it was published they called it "William Byrd's Secret Diary," and that this is exactly the sort of stuff that I love to dig into, because what do you write in a diary that you're writing in code, just the most personal things, the stuff that doesn't turn up in documents very often. This is the type of object that would normally get destroyed by families, but so this is his secret diary. William Byrd wrote about meals he was having, exercises he was doing, a lot of sexual stuff in there, and so we ended up knowing a lot about him as sort of a private individual, perhaps too much about him. He has a rich archive of documents to pull from, and because he fancied himself sort of a poet and a satirist, a lot of this stuff is funny or interesting, or saucy. So that's one of the reasons that people sort of know William Byrd of Westover as far as his sort of political career, his life. He was born in 1674, he spent his childhood traveling back and forth between Virginia or his youth, traveling back and forth between Virginia and England. So he really is one of those colonial guys, that is an English citizen considers themselves who just happens to live in Virginia. He spent two years in London working with London mercantile companies and learning how to do business, to quote his Encyclopedia of Virginia entry, he attended the theater frequently and sported with naughty jades. He spent his 20s practicing law, not particularly successfully, he didn't get any important posts in English government. So, after his father's death, he returned to Virginia in 1705, to take over his father's tobacco plantations. So it's sort of like he had a shot, he went to the big city in London for a while, didn't quite make it, and he knew he had this very cushy fall back of coming back to this huge amount of land in Virginia. So, he came back in 1705, had this tobacco plantation had this household, large number of slaves, and that point is when he was like, 'Well, it's time to find a wife.' So he began to court, Jane Ledwell Parke, perhaps knowing, from his time in England, a little bit about her father's career, and his lobbying to get important positions and the amount of money that he has. So, at the time he is courting her, he's 31 years old. And she was 18, which again, was very common back then, but there's still a weird power dynamic. Before diving into the letter, here's a couple of things to sort of explain why the letter is written the way that it's written, as I've said several times, now, William Byrd was a writer, he published some poetry, he wrote some serious works, but also some sort of satire. And he's sort of fit with the sort of satirical culture of the very early 1700s, which is actually like a lot of sort of potty humor, honestly. But, that's sort of the the style of his writing, and he likes to use fake names when writing about people false names, but usually have some sort of deeper meaning behind them. This is something you see that throughout the 18th century, for example, in he wrote a travel narrative of a surveying trip that he went on, to survey the dividing line between Virginia and Carolina. And in his actual diary, he used everyone's real names. But when he started to think about maybe publishing it, he changed everyone's names to descriptive pseudonyms. So he called one person Dr. Humdrum. There's somebody called Firebrand. One of the men that was on this trip is actually Martha Washington's uncle, and he just calls him "Meanwell." And he refers to himself as "Steady." And when he writes about women, and he writes a lot about women, and he doesn't like women, particularly. He has all sorts of fake names, but the one that stands out to me is he refers to a woman with bad hygiene as "Fartamira." Which, again, he loves those fart jokes, but that is when I was like, okay, William Byrd. I'll hand that to you. That's a funny name. This is all to say that he doesn't refer to people by their real names in this letter either. He also calls Lucy his future wife, "Fidelia." He calls her sister Frances, "Irene." And he refers to Lucy's father Daniel Parke as Senor Fanferony. I know we don't have a ton of letters between William Byrd and his wife. We have a lot of him writing about her in his secret diaries, though. So, that's later at the point at the point of this letter, he is still very much courting this 18 year old woman who he knows is going to inherit some money, and he's very much in it to win it. So this is a letter that he writes. We don't have a date exactly, but it's about this time that he's courting her. William Byrd II to Fidelia.

"What would some lovers give for this lucky occasion of beginning biliadu. The moment I began to write I'm entertained with the cooing of two amorous turtles. Were I capable of understanding their language as well as a certain philosopher did once upon a time, I would be their interpreter and tell you a long story of the tender reproaches they make to one another. But though I know as little of what these lovers say as to guess it their meaning. They talk of nothing but the dearest of all subjects love, and abound with expressions of tenderness to one another. One complains of too much coldness in her mate and of the huge inequality of their passions. Another is full of approaches to his mistress for discovering too much distinction to his rival. A third tells his fears, lest the summer should end too soon and too hastily conclude the intrigue. Another again, like an unreasonable woman that has been twice married, is continually upbrading her last gallon with the exceeding kindness of her first. With such tender moans as these they spend their happy days and reconcile all their murmuring, quarrels with queueing and billing. I can't forbear envying these innocent lovers of the blessing they enjoy of being always together while I poor, poor I, must lament the want of my dear, dear turtle for many days. Pray have the goodness to help me bear this misfortune. By all the instances of kindness you can show by gracious looks and gracious actions when I'm with you, by tender thoughts and tender letters when I'm from you, such expressions of favor on your side, and a good stock of patience and forbearance on mine, may perhaps enable me to outlive the uneasiness of our separation. I had the honor to lie at Irene's palace in my passage hitter, where I met with a certain Don Quixote, who once would have encountered any windmill or rattlesnake to do you service. Neither the delights of Blackwater Swamp, nor the charms of two succeeding mistresses, which took possession of his heart within a month of each other have been sufficient to block you out of his inclinations. He remembered you devoutly in his cups with upcast eyes toasted you'd not withstanding all your frowns, and in spite of the triumphs of a more successful rival, Senor Carote was graciously pleased to call me cousin per advance and Peeka Mira, by the help of some violence made a shift to squeeze out a dark smile upon me. The Squire that was my last ambassador to you is lately come from Gloucester in despair. His saucy nymph received him with negative looks, and pronounce sentence of everlasting banishment upon him, alas distressed Swain I wonder in his return home, he did not meet with a convenient tree to his liking, to put an end to his misfortunes. But, now I think on it, he can't endure hanging because they say Judas hanged himself who was treacherous, and so not to be followed by a faithful lover, neither can he bear the thoughts of drowning, he is so very nice, because water being counted as a fickle element cannot consist with his mighty constancy. What kind of depth he intends to choose is yet a secret. But if He'll vouch safe to take my advice, he shall eat and die of that distemper that killed the patriarch, old age. Neither do I believe that serve fragrant Jessamine has succeeded better in that savage ladies favor, though it must be confessed that he bears his distresses with abundance of solid philosophy and wears the same insipid satisfaction in his face that he used to show. Irene could have instructed him to turn his mistress infallibly if he could not prevail with her to whisper a secret in his ear, she would be smitten as sure as she has a nose, from whence love would mount into the brain, and from thence descend into her heart. Thus, my dear,Fidelia, I have given you an account of the state of love amongst other people. I'd meet that tell you how thoroughly I feel it myself, because I have mentioned it before and fear less to the repetition of it should prove sickly and mockus to your stomach. However, pray do me the justice to believe that as those people have most honesty, most virtue and most courage that say the least of it, so I have the most tender passion in the world for you, though perhaps I don't stuff my letters with those fond flourishes with which the common heard of lovers spoil a great deal of paper. But, I leave my actions to speak for me, which are always the best vouchers in the world, and which will always convince you that I am faithfully and entirely, you're ver amore."

So, this is the letter book copy of his letter, which means that this is either the version that he wrote out first before writing it again on the paper that he's actually going to send her or a version that he copied out of the letter. So, maybe in the real letter that he sent to us people's actual names. Who knows? Again, funny guy. He's trying to write with a lot of flair and style. What he's essentially doing, if it got a little bit too wordy to understand over me reading it. What he's trying to do here is describe the love lives of the other people in their social circle. I think some of these people may have been people, obviously one of them at least is has been courting her Lucy Parke herself, but maybe more of them are and he's sort of writing about the way other people who have been shot down by her and her sister are reacting in kind of a funny way. So it's sort of like, 'Haha, we're joking about these other people who are trying to woo you unsuccessfully,' but at the same time try and distinguish himself as somebody who's worth talking to. There's a little bit of sort of nagging, like in here of like, well, you know, other people might be writing lots of love letters to you, but I am too good for that. And the way he starts his his little thing about, I wish he was actually just writing about turtles, like actual turtles, but I'm sure he's talking about turtledoves that are in love with each other. When I first read this, I had a minute of being like, oh, man, William Byrd loves turtles. But so he writes with that little sort of poetic thing of oh, look at these two turtledoves cooing at each other. And he writes these little, it's like a little lesson of romance like the first complains of too much coldness and her mates and the huge inequality of their passions, another's full of reproaches because his mistress doesn't love him back. Third, is worried that the intrigue will end too soon. And another, like an unreasonable woman that has been twice married. I love that unreasonable woman who is upbraiding her current husband with comparisons to her first husband. So he's kind of telling you a little bit of what he thinks about men and women and romance in that first little opening paragraph. I don't know what he means by Irene's palace. Again, this is a little before where I have a stronger grasp of the cast of characters in here and I was not able to identify all of these people who he's talking about with these false names. Don Quixote obvious, Senor Carote, Peekamira, Sir Fragrant Jessamine. I don't know who all these people are, but the idea of it is that he's describing the sort of other young lovers in their area, and kind of making fun of them. So what do we know about Lucy Parke, we don't have very many documents from Lucy Parke herself. So, we know that she was raised mostly by her mother, Jane Ledwell Parke. Her father was away for most of her upbringing, but they did write back and forth, and she did get a pretty good education for a woman at this time. But, most of the writings about her are taken from what her husband wrote. And, a lot of times the published works that are about William Byrd are from when women's history was not so much of a thing. And so they kind of take Byrd's descriptions of her as absolutely 100% accurate. If you read histories of Lucy Parke, she comes across as always somebody who's completely unreasonable, has a terrible temper, and who made her husband's life miserable. And this is because all of the descriptions of her are from him. And most of the histories are written by people who are taking his word at face value. Or some of these are from like the 1930s, and clearly the person writing these books is racist and misogynist themselves. That said, it is documented in the books that she beat an enslaved woman named Jenny with a hot iron, it seems very likely that William Byrd was sleeping with Jenny, and Lucy Bird did the thing that happens all the time at this time where she took out her frustrations on that situation on Jenny, the person who she had full and complete control over. And then William Byrd gets to sit back and say, 'Oh, look at how unreasonable my wife is' because from his perspective, everything he's doing is well within his rights. And she comes across as the completely irrational one, but the real victim here is Jenny, who's in a horrific situation where she's being raped by one person, and then beaten by that person's wife, and it just shows the horrible realities of slavery. So, I don't want to say that Lucy Parke is a good person, I'm not going to say hey, she was written about by misogynist, therefore, she must be a great person, no, that's not the point. I am going to say that she was written about by a misogynist. Jenny was written about by people who didn't even think about her as an actual human being, and William Byrd is not as great as a lot of these histories make of sound, it's like, okay, he could write something sort of funny. But in his secret diary, he writes about beating slaves, sleeping with enslaved women, forcibly kissing other married women, sleeping with a ton of prostitutes. He's incredibly proud of how many prostitutes he slept with, and Native American women. He's constantly writing about this in his secret diaries. So most histories, even going off of the earlier histories, and the documents sort of describe him as a fun, quirky writer, with his wife being a shrill, horrible woman. They don't even write about the enslaved people, the Native American people as human beings.

I think we're due for a reevaluation of William Byrd and Lucy Byrd that actually takes the humanity of the people that they enslaved, and other people into context. Obviously, this sort of argument that William Byrd is making in this letter is that he's the best suitor. Look at how well educated, he is how smart he is, he's got that little bit of like I'm teaching you tone, and I think that just is built in with both relationships at this time, obviously man is in complete authority over his wife are supposed to be a complete authority over his wife, you could see real life examples of that not being the case. But built into it is the fact that this is a 31 year old person who has seen a lot of life who is messaging an 18 year old who has not. So I think that that's part of the like, patronizing attitude of a lot of the gender writing of this time. It isn't just that men were always considered to be the most knowledgeable it was they really did have an age advantage over women. It's just sort of built into the relationship like that. So, was he pure of heart and really invested in her? Probably not, he seems to be sort of wanting to find a wife to fill out his plantation and was marrying for money. We have the letter that Byrd wrote to Daniel Parke or Senor Fanferony, asking for permission to marry. And it's pretty clear that he expects the money for it. Here's his letter.

"Since my arrival in this country, I have had the honor to be acquainted with your daughters and was infinitely surprised to find young ladies with their accomplishments in Virginia. The surprise was soon improved into a passion for the youngest for whom I have all the respect and tenderness in the world. However, I think it my duty to intrigue your approbation before I proceed to give her the last testimony of my affection, and the young lady herself, whatever she made determined by your consent will agree to nothing without it. If you can entertain a favorable opinion of my person, I don't question but my fortune may be sufficient to make her happy, especially after it has been assisted by your bounty. If you shall vouch safe to approve of this undertaking, I shall endeavor to recommend myself by all the dutiful regards to your excellency and all the marks of kindness to your daughter. Nobody knows better than yourself how impatient lovers are... continue."

So as you can tell, he says he's expecting to be able to take care of her especially after it's been assisted by your bounty. And John Custis, who was courting at the same time, and William Byrd actually ended up marrying on the same day they both got married in May 1706, and John Custis said that he was anticipating by marrying one of the Parkes that he was going to get about 4000 pounds sterling from Daniel Parke, but as you may have gathered, Daniel Parke does not always fulfill his obligations, and that 4000 pounds never appeared. Now, why did this money never appear? What was Daniel Park doing in the Leeward Islands? We're gonna get into that in the next episode of Martha Washington's in-laws.

So the next episode, we're going to talk about Daniel Parke, and I'm going to read the tragical end of Daniel Parke, which was a news article that was actually written about what happened to Daniel park in the Leeward Islands, and what effect this has on his two daughters who had just married in Virginia, and we're beginning their lives. Thank you very much for listening. As William Byrd would say at the end of the letter, I shall endeavor to recommend myself by all dutiful regards to you, my listeners, and I am as ever, your most obedient and humble servant. Thank you very much.