1650 - 1699
Under construction
Andrew Marvell
1650Robert Bargrave (20) imprisoned in Istanbul mentioned advances of his gaoler which were horrid
to remember.
The Count of Vila Franca (56) has now had sex with 46 partners, 15 of them his own pages.
In Geneva in the previous 250 years only 60 men or boys were tried for sodomy.
In the preceding 250 years there were only 34 sodomy cases in Amsterdam, Utrecht & The Hague.
Pierre-Daniel Huet (21) travels to Holland & has a tempestuous affair with a future pastor &
minor poet.
1651 In the Archbishopric of Cambrai, Jean Varré, priest, was put on trial for pestering many men in
their 20s, and attempting buggery.
July – August. Andrew Marvell writes ‘Upon Appleton House, To My Lord Fairfax’, which has
been given a same-sex reading.
Death of Aniseed-Water Robin, who had been briefly married to the highwayman John
Cottingham, and mentioned by Pepys. He/she was despised by Mary Frith.
1652 Young Alcibiades Goes to School by Antonio Rocco is published [written in 1630] and is
immediately denounced by the catholic Church.
In Indonesia a trial examined a Dane (40) & his sexual relations with 5 native youths.
Poet Katherine Phillips ends her intimate friendship with Mary Aubrey (‘Rosania’), after the
latter marries. She transfers her affections to Anne Owen (‘Lucasia’).
Andrew Marvell writes ‘The Picture of Little T.C.’, in which some have seen the castrating
Mother Goddess as an emasculation of the poet.
François Le Métel de Boisrobert (60), playwright boasts of his male conquests.
16536 June. Richard Berry and Teague Joanes are ordered to “part their uncivil living together.”
In Amsterdam, judges asked why Anna Alders wore male attire, she replied “poverty.”
Cyrano de Bergerac and Charles Coypeau d’Assoucy quarelled & became rivals.
1653-7Michael Wrigglesworth, minister of Malden Church, Massachusetts, keeps a coded diary, where
he reveals his temptations towards his pupils.
1654A Dalmatian Friar was prosecuted in Venice for several sexual assaults on novices, but he argued
that “buggery is the tasty morsel of princes, not the food of riff-raff and common people.”
In Lieden, Litius Wielant, private tutor, was accused of sodomizing his pupils.
1655May. Johann Rosenmüller & several choirboys are arrested for suspected same-sex activity. He
escapes to Venice.
In Lincoln a schoolmaster was hanged for buggering one of his pupils.
Two youths were removed from the English fleet for buggery with each other.
In New Haven John Knight was executed for attempting to sodomize a teenage boy.
New Haven’s law code was drawn up. In its definition of sodomy it included female-female sex,
anal penetration of women & vaginal penetration of girls before puberty. This is the first
time the ‘crime’ of lesbianism appeared on a statute book.
c.1655Michael Wrigglesworth’s Harvard diaries include him lusting after male students.
1656John Finch & Thomas Baines graduate in medicine from the university of Padua & return to
Christ’s college, Cambridge.
1657Joan Six van Chandelier published a poem ‘On the Sodomy of Florence’.
The Carnal Prayer Mat by Li Yu is written. Includes a same-sex relationship between master &
servant, before the master attempts to have his penis enlarged.
Discourse of Friendship by Jeremy Taylor. He describes close male friendships as a “marriage of
souls.”
In Hamburg a weaver was accused of several sexual assaults on boys, girls & the devil. The
sodomy trial was held in secret.
The States and Empires of the Sun by Cyrano de Bergerac – contains a scene with an erotic youth,
powerfully sexual & seminal, which evaded publication until the author had died – even
so it was initially published anonymously.
1657-8In Mexico City a flourishing same-sex scene was unearthed. Juan de la Vega exhibited some
aspects of a berdache – a native third sex: born male, but having many characteristics of
a traditional female.
1658 Francis Osborne gossiped about James I’s affection for his favourites: “was as amorously
conveyed as if I had mistaken their sex, and thought them ladies; which I have seen
Somerset & Buckingham labour to resemble, in the effeminateness of their dressings.”
Nicholas Sension of Connecticut made three separate overtures to Josiah Holcombe.
In Middlesex, Massachusetts a man was accused of sodomitical practices, but the case went no
further.
In Mexico City 14 of the men involved in same-sex meetings were burnt at the stake. The number
of suspects totalled 123.
In China the poet & historian Chen Weisong (35) meets the page-boy and future actor Xu Ziyun
(15), nicknamed ‘Purple Clouds’. They become lifelong companions.
1659Richard Berry is charged with obscene practices and expelled from the Plymouth Colony. Teague Joanes remains behind.
James Howell publishes some Spanish proverbs, which includes one which states: “Three Italians:
two buggers and an atheist”.
Death of Mary Frith. She asked to be buried “with her breech upwards, that she might be as
preposterous in death as she had been all along in her infamous life.”
166017 June. Jan Van der Linde, a soldier and new father of New Amsterdam, was found guilty of
sodomy with his servant Hendrik Harmensen. He was drowned in a sack in the Hudson.
The Wandering Whore by John Garfield opines that male clients attending brothels “had rather be
dealing with smooth-faced ‘prentices.’ “There, likewise hermaphrodites, effeminate
men, men given to much luxury, idleness and wanton pleasures, and to that abominable
sin of sodomy, wherein they are both active and passive in it, whose vicious actions are
only to be whispered amongst us.
15 August. Pepys makes a diary entry which seems to have a same-sex interpretation: here I lay
all night in the old chamber which I had now given up to W. Howe, with whom I did
intend to lie, but he and I fell to play with one another, so that I made him to go lie with
Mr. Sheply. So I lay alone all night.
1661Jean-Baptiste Lully is made Master of the King’s Music. He becomes part of the same-sex coterie
around the King’s brother.
Francisco Correa Netto, Sacristan of Cathedral of Silves in S.Portual begins writing love letters to
guitarist Manoel Viegas.
In Paris Jacques Chausson (43) & Jacques Paulmier (36) are convicted of sexually assaulting
teenage boy. They were also found to have alternated active & passive roles with each
other and were burnt at the stake. They had also procured young boys for rich
aristocratic clients.
The Three Potters in Cripplegate is reported to be a new tavern for ingles.
At the High Court of the Admiralty a naval chaplain was accused by a boy (14).
Naval regulations now official enshrined the death penalty for any found guilty of sodomy.
Poet Katherine Phillips finds an excuse to follow Anne Owen to Ireland when the latter marries.
1662The Life of Mrs Mary Frith describes the life of someone who started life as a tomboy, and as an
adult dressed as a man.
1663 Sir Charles Sedley appeared naked on a balcony of the Cock Inn, Bow Street, a Covent Garden
eating-house and according to some accounts mimed the act of buggery. An anonymous
song of the period says that “Sedley has fuck’t a thousand arses.”
Sir Charles Sedley
Samuel Pepys: “Sir J. Mennes & Mr Batten both say that buggery is now almost grown so
common among our gallants in Italy, and that the very pages of the town begin to
complain of their masters for it.”
The Wild Gallant by John Dryden includes the line: “Plague, had you no places to name in town
but Sodom & Lucknor’s Lane for lodgings.”
1664John Finch becomes an ambassador to the Ducal Court in Florence. Thomas Baines goes with him
as physician.
The Belgian artist Michael Sweerts dies in Goa. Many of his surviving work appears to have a
homoerotic content.
1665John Knight is executed for sodomizing his master’s 14-year-old son in New Haven, Connecticut.
1666João da Costa, a former priest, has a first trial for sodomy.
William of Orange (15) takes Hans Bentinck (16) into service. They are thought to become lovers.
In Paris the earliest known sodomy case in the police archives takes place. A man (72) pestered a
boy of 15, and was found to have done the same earlier with other youths.
Summer. Pepys notes that ladies of honour were dressed “just for all the world like men…so that,
only for a long petticoat dragging under their men’s coats nobody could take them for
women in any point whatever.”
1667Andrew Marvell publishes the poem ‘Last Instructions to a Painter’, which includes a homoerotic
portrait of Captain Archibald Douglas.
Samuel Pepys wrote that a scandal had arisen regarding the Bishop of Rochester. He was alleged
to have had sex with boys and having put his hand inside a man’s codpiece.
At the Old Bailey Thomas Rivers complained when his apprentice, Henry Wells (15), ran away.
Wells said his master buggered him when his mistress was away. However, Henry’s
mother was coaching him on what to say, and Henry only confessed when the halter was
around Rivers’ neck, saving his life.
The Present State of Russia by Samuel Collins. He said “Russians were inclined to Sodomy &
Buggery.”
Nicholas Sension made advances to his young servant Nathaniel Pond. Where?
1668The Convent of Pleasure by Margaret Cavendish concerns an all-female group who flee from a
world of men to enjoy each other in their cloistered nook. The first play by a woman
which celebrates female eroticism.
An Evening’s Love by John Dryden includes the exchange: “Maskall: I imagined them to be
Italians./ Lopez: Not unlikely, for they played most furiously at our backsides.”
The Present State of the Ottoman Empire by Paul Rycaut published. It mentions details of Sultan
Murad’s pederastic affairs.
Andrew Marvell wrote ‘The Garden’, which includes the phrase “vegetable Love.” Some have
argued that the poem’s symbolism is predominantly of a same-sex love.
Adam Bell, a ballad of sworn brotherhood appears in a cheap chapbook. [see 1550].
1669A pamphlet, the Children’s Petition, argues against unmitigated school floggings. Schoolmasters
whipped posteriors because they were the source of his temptation and sin, but they may
have excited the buttocks for further action.”
1670Hexaméron rustique by François de La Mothe – extols Greek Love.
1671The Amorous Prince by Aphra Behn has Lorenzo soliloquising: “ ’tis a fine lad, how plump &
white he is; would I could meet him somewhere i’ th’ dark, I’d have a fling at him, and
try whether I were right Florentine.” He asks the boy how long he has been a prostitute,
and tells him not to chase women as that will “spoil a good face and mar your better
market of the two.”
João da Costa, a former priest, becomes the last person to be hanged in Portugal for sodomy. He
confessed to sex with 49 boys, aged from 7-17.
Princess Mary (9), the future Mary II, begins writing passionate letters to Frances Apsley. The
letters continued until Mary’s marriage 8 years later.
1672Sir John Finch is appointed as ambassador to Tuscany, and is accompanied by Thomas Baines as
his physician, and the latter is knighted.
Giovanni Battista Primi Visconti (24) was propositioned by the Marquis de la Vallière (30) for
sex. He extricated himself & later included the incident in his memoirs.
John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, begins work on his play Sodom.
John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester by Jacob Huysmans
1673In a poem by Edward Howard he refers to “two females meeting, found a sportful way/ Without
man’s help a tickling game to play.”
In Utrecht Isabella Geelvinck was found guilty of theft & arson, and had lived for a man for 15
years.
1673-83 The duc D’Orléans, brother of Louis XIV, employed a maître d’hôtel to procure young boys.
1673-4In the Danish-Norwegian army a captain was accused after several men reported that he forced
himself on them.
167418 March. Sir John Finch arrives in Constantinople when he is appointed an ambassador to the
Ottoman Empire. Sir Thomas Baines joins him, but is not satisfactorily severed from
his duties in Tuscany.
In Naples a priest was accused of saying sodomy was not a sin.
Sir John Finch
1675Prince William of Orange had smallpox and was advised to sleep with a healthy boy to absorb his
“animal spirits.” The page chosen was William Bentinck and he became William’s
favourite for many years.
Winter. John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, completes his play Sodom.
Anne Jacobs told a Harderwijk magistrate: “that she was more a man than a woman.” She was
physically examined & told to dress as a man in future.
c.1675Michel Febvre, French Capuchin missionary, wrote about the Sufi that they were “strongly
inclined to carnal vices, and to sin against nature. For sodomy, and other abominable
deeds,…that they have become habitual, and they commit them without any pang of
conscience.” He also alleged that punishments for sexual crimes were hardly ever carried
out, which had the effect of increasing the number of offences.
Death of ‘Purple Clouds’, lover of the poet Chen Weisong.
Two Oxford professors are caught trying to print copies of Pietro Aretino’s works.
The Disabled Debauchee by John Wilmot includes the lines: “When each the well-looked link boy
strove t’enjoy,/And the best kiss was the deciding lot/Whether the boy fucked you, or I
the boy.”
1676Geneviève Prémoy disguised as a man enlists in the Prince of Condé’s army.
1677All for Love by John Dryden. Antony’s feelings for Dolabella now seem homoerotic.
Nicholas Sension’s (59) trial occurs in Windsor, Connecticut, where he is found guilty of
attempted sodomy over 30 years. His goods and belongings were held in bond for good
behaviour. There were no further complaints against him.
1678In Winterthur, Switzerland, a baker was tried for sodomy & named 18 partners.
c.1678 A play Sodom and Gomorrah by Thomas Jordan & Christopher Fishbourne is written, but is
never intended to be performed. King Bolloxinian tires of his wife & vows to devote
himself to buggery from now on.
1679The Governor of Jamaica tried 5 men on the ship Jersey for buggery. 4 were found guilty, but only
the apparent ringleader, Francis Dilly, was executed.
The Dutch Calvinist preacher Jacobus Hondius thought sodomy should be dealt with in utmost
circumspection.
1680 Tsunayoshi becomes the fifth Shogun. He was notorious for keeping 150 male concubines in his
palace.
26 July. John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester dies. He demanded that all his lewd and scandalous
works were to be destroyed.
5 September. Thomas Baines dies from pleurisy in Constantinople. His body was embalmed &
brought back to England by his constant companion Sir John Finch. They were buried
together the following year in an elaborate tomb, with marital symbolism.
12 September. James Howard & Arabella Hunt married at Marleybone Church. They appeared to
be man & wife for 6 months, but James was actually Mrs Amy Poulter.
Sir Thomas Baines
1681 The False Count by Aphra Behn has a character saying “I have known as much danger hidden
under a petticoat, as a pair of Breeches. I have heard of 2 women that married each other
– oh abominable.”
September. Death of Sir Thomas Baines in Constantinople.
Andrew Marvell’s The Garden is published posthumously. It contains many examples of
homoeroticism.
Agostinho do Monte Sion, Lisbon friar, admitted sex with 62 partners, aged 14-25, 300+ times in
the past 18 years.)
1682Thomas Otway’s Venice Preserved contains a male couple, Pierre and Jaffeir, who are extremely
demonstrative in their affection for each other.
Satyr on the Players includes a squib against actor James Nokes: “Secure your gentle bums/For
full of lust and fury see he comes!/’Tis buggering Nokes, whose damned unwieldy tarse/
Weeps to be buried in his foreman’s arse,/unnatural sinner, lecher without sense,/To
leave kind c**t to dive in excrements.”
Manoel da Costa (21), Sacristan, admitted repeated sexual relations with 10 older monks.
The Life of an Amorous Man by Ihara Saikaku – a connoisseur of youths is included.
A play by Thomas Durfey refers to peers buying youths for 100 guineas.
At Versailles 11+ noblemen were removed from court after a scandal involving sodomy.
The Life of an Amorous Man by Ihara Saikaku is circulated. The title-character had sex with
3742 women & 725 men.
1683The Duke of Guise, a Tragedy by John Dryden & Nathaniel Lee. Same-sex coupling is dismissed
as “a damned love-trick new brought over from France.”
c.1683In Rotterdam a man (56) solicited men for sex in a public lavatory. 3 men were arrested for
sodomizing each other.
1684 Sodom: or, The Quintessence of Debauchery, a play attributed to John Wilmot, Earl of
Rochester published in Antwerp. Censored in England for obscenity.
The She-Wedding: or a Mad Marriage, between Mary, a Seaman’s Mistress, and Margaret, a
Carpenter’s Wife, at Deptford is issued as a pamphlet.
A memorial to John Finch & Thomas Baines is erected in the chapel of Christ’s College,
Cambridge, containing a knotted cloth in token of the connubium, or marriage between
the two men.
In Leiden a rare male-male sodomy case is prosecuted: while on campaign a Polish officer was
accused of sexually exploiting a junior soldier & his young servant. He was acquitted.
Les Intrigues amoureuses de la cour de France by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras, a highly
fictionalised version of the 1682 Versailles scandal was published in Holland.
1685 William of Orange takes Arnold Joost van Keppel (15) into service and is besotted.
Valentinian a posthumously-published tragedy by John Wilmot includes the emperor speaking
to a eunuch: “Oh let me press those balmy lips all day,/And bathe my love-scorched
soul in thy moist kisses.”
Julie D’Aubigny (12) gains competence in fencing, which she will utilize when she dons male
disguise.
Louis XIV’s composer, Jean-Baptiste Lully, is accused of improper relations with Brunet, a
page-boy in his household. Brunet was removed, but Lully escaped punishment.
In Brazil Gregório de Mattos, poet, was denounced for saying Jesus was a sodomite.
Five Women in Love by Saikaku. “Between the pleasure one has in man and that which one
obtains with women there is no difference.”
1687The Great Mirror of Male Love by Ihara Saikaku is circulated. A collection of stories about sex
between men.
Yoshida Hanbei illustrates a book giving advice to young men about hairstyles, cosmetics &
making themselves attractive.
c.1687Julie D’Aubigny becomes involves with Séranne, a fencing master, and begins to dress in male
attire, though not pass as a man.
1688 Les Intrigues de Molière in which Molière was said to be the lover of his pupil and principal
actor proved remarkably popular.
Geneviève Prémoy disguised as a man participates in the Siege of Phillipsburg.
Osman ağa of Timişoara (17) is propositioned by a younger Austrian boy into teaching him the
degrading practices of the Turks but he refuses.
An anonymous author claimed Russians committed “Sodomitical villainies with men & beasts.”
c1688-90 Julie D’Aubigny began her first lesbian relationship with a young woman, who was placed by
her family in a convent to escape D’Aubigny. D’Aubigny poses as a novice and enters
the convent. She places a dead nun in her lover’s room, sets fire to it & escapes with her
lover. She is charged in absentia as a male – with kidnapping, body snatching & arson,
but fails to appear before the tribunal, so is sentenced to death by burning. After a few
months the young nun returns to her family.
Julie d’Aubigny
c.1688 In Brest the port authorities were ordered to put a stop to sodomitical practices.
1689 Don Sebastian by John Dryden is performed. A Portuguese king prefers men to women.
Dryden’s satire is directed at old men who play the passive role.
Madame Palatine (wife of Louis XIV’s sodomitical brother) attempts to prevent her son, the
Marquis d’Effiat, from having a notorious sodomite as his governor.
In Amsterdam 4 men in their early 20s solicited other men for sex, and then resorted to
blackmail.
1690 Matthias de Mattos (40), confessed to an affair with a younger monk, in which they alternated
the active & passive roles.
In Quebec the bishop instructed confessors to be less lax in giving absolution for sodomy.
The Society for the Reformation of Manners is formed in Tower Hamlets to crack down on lewd
behaviour. Sometimes called the Holy Rollers. 4 years later there were 16 of these
organisations in London.
20 June. Anne Chamberlayne “fought under her brother” “with arms and manly attire, in a fire-
ship.”
Death of Gédéon Tallemant who wrote of the same-sex peccadilloes of Louis XIII, but which
remained unpublished until 1834.
1691 In Montreal a lieutenant admitted trying to debauch several men. He was fined & banished,
while the men were imprisoned for 2-3 years.
Geneviève Prémoy, disguised as a man, is injured in the breast at the Siege of Mons. She was
ordered to visit Louis XIV. He made her an honorary knight of the Order of St Louis,
but had to leave the army. She was given a pension, made to wear a skirt, but wore male
attire on the upper body.
1692William III grants land to Keppel, which results in gossip.
Jenny Cromwell’s Complaint Against Sodomy. She mentions ‘Bardash’: [Bentinck]the Earl of
Scarsdale who was known “to skulk about the alleys / And is Content with Bettys, Nans
& Mollys.” She inveighs against the King: “Till you came in and with your reformation
/Turn’d all things Arsey Versey in the Nation.”
1693The Carnal Prayer Mat by Li Yu is published for the first time. [1657].
Charles Spencer, third Earl of Sunderland (19) begins a love affair with a dashing officer, Captain
Edward Wilson. ‘Beau’ Wilson becomes what was known as Spencer’s man-mistress.
Ralph Hollingsworth was charged for multiple bigamy. Part of his defence was that one of his
wives was no wife at all. Susannah Belling, according to Ralph: “knowing her infirmity
ought not to have married; her infirmity is such that no man can lie with her, and
because it is so she has ways with women…which is not fit to be named but most ran
whorish they are.”
1694 Spring. John Law, on a pretext pulls ‘Beau’ Wilson from his carriage on the Strand, engaging him
in a duel on the spot, and kills him. Law may have been paid by Charles Spencer. Law
was convicted of murder, but escaped from prison, possibly aided by the connivance of
Elizabeth Villiers or Sunderland.
In Quebec only the bishop could give absolution for sodomy.
Matsuo Bashō, greatest master of haiku dies. Some of his poems dealt with the poet reminiscing
about his fondness for young men.
Anthony Wood’s letter described a woman who dressed as a man to obtain money she: “was found
guilty of marrying a young maid, whose portion she had obtained and was very nigh of
being contracted of a second marriage.” Her letters to other projected wives were read
out in court, to much laughter. She was ordered to be well whipped and sentenced to
hard labour.
1695 Keppel is made Groom of the Bedchamber & Master of the Robes.
The Counterfeit Bridegroom pamphlet. A young Irishman, Mr K, married a Southwark girl for
her £200 dowry, but in bed it was discovered the Mr K was a woman, who escaped with
the £200.
1696A Collection of Discarded Letters by ihara Saikaku is published posthumously. This includes ‘The
Monk from Kyoto Who Hated Cherry Blossoms.’
John Vanburgh’s The Relapse has Coupler, with apparent sodomitical characteristics, but also Lord Foppington who is merely a fop.
Grand Duke Gian Gastone de’ Medici is in Hamburg with his groom, pimp and long-term lover
Giuliano Dami. The Grand Duke is the patron for Handel’s opera Nero.
1697William Bentinck, Earl of Portland, jealous of William III’s patronage of the handsome royal page
Keppel, writes to the King: “the kindness which your Majesty has for a young man, and
the way in which you seem to authorise his liberties…make the world say things I am
ashamed to hear…tarnishing a reputation which has never before been subject to such
accusations.”
1698Captain Rigby, Naval commander, is court-martialled for sodomy, but is acquitted. Thomas Bray
thinks he was guilty & decides to entrap him.
5 Nov. Captain Rigby notices William Minton (19) in St. James’ Park, and places Minton’s hand
on his erect penis & kisses him. They agree to meet a few days later, but it is a trap.
Rigby was sentenced to 3 sessions in the pillory, a fine of £1k, and a year in prison. He
escaped to France and continued his naval career there.
Nov. Joseph Thomas, barber’s servant, is sexually assaulted by a Richard Kirby.
In Paris reports survive from this date of young men sent out as bait to try and catch same-sex
liaisons taking place on Parisian streets.
1699Madame Palatine stated she believed sodomy was fashionable at court & that it was hidden from
the common people but was spoken of openly among aristocrats.
William Bentinck resigns all his offices under William of Orange over the latter’s preference for
Keppel.
16 June. Richard Kirby makes another sexual advance on Joseph Thomas who makes a formal
complaint, but the case did not come to trial.
Gian Gastone Medici neglects his wife while his procurer, Giuliano Dami, arranges liaisons with
male students and servants.
In Windsor a gang of sodomites was rounded-up.
Bibliography
Aldrich, Robert, Gay Life Stories, London: Thames & Hudson, 2023.
Aldrich, Robert & Garry Wotherspoon (eds.), Who’s Who in Gay & Lesbian History: From Antiquity to World War II: London,
Routledge, 2001.
Bray, Alan, The Friend, University of Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Griffin, Gabriele, (ed.), Who’s Who in Lesbian & Gay Writing, Routledge: London, 2002.
Malcolm, Noel, Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe: Male-Male Sexual Relations, 1400-1759, Oxford: OUP, 2024.
Norton, Rictor, My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries, San Francisco: Leyland Publications: 1998.
Rowse, A.L., Homosexuals in History, London: Wiedenfeld & Nicholson, 1977.
Spencer, Colin, Homosexuality, a History, London: Fourth Estate, 1995.
Warner, Kathryn, Sex and Sexuality in Medieval England, Yorkshire: Pen & Sword History, 2022.
Woods, Gregory, Homosexuality in Literature, London: Yale University Press, 1998.
Comments
Post a Comment