Trashy Royals

Hemlock Creatives
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Trashy Royals Podcast

Whether it's the debauchery of ancient Roman emperors, the Tudor crime family, the shenanigans behind the Chair of St. Peter, or the Austrian elites’ attempts to save themselves by trading their daughters to other royal houses, it turns out that our betters have always been among our worst. Join Alicia and Stacie from Trashy Divorces as we turn our jaded eyes to a different kind of moral garbage fire: Trashy Royals! Thursdays. Brought to you by Hemlock Creatives.

  1. 5 DAYS AGO

    Grace O'Malley, Ireland's Pirate Queen

    A century and a half before the "Golden Age of Piracy," an Irish woman of noble birth was conquering the inland seas and coastlines on the western edge of the island. Gráinne Ó Máille, anglicized to Grace O'Malley, hailed from the Umhaill line, a seafaring clan of Connacht, and while the family did conduct legitimate forms of trade, they also ran protection rackets on boats that tried to fish their waters, and sometimes plundered merchant vessels in the area, as well as settlements belonging to neighboring clans. Her life almost perfectly overlapped Queen Elizabeth I's, and during Grace's life, the English Crown was deeply invested in the conquest of Ireland, mostly by seducing its nobles into servitude with fancy English titles. Barons and Earls proliferated around Dublin for years, but English shenanigans finally reached the West of the country when Grace's first husband was cut out from the line of succession to his family's Chief of the Name. Then he was assassinated, leaving Grace ready and willing to enact violent revenge on his killers. The Crown continued eroding the alliances she was building. Her second husband was demoted from his role as regional king of Connacht while Grace was jailed on a plundering trip. When the Crown-supported king died, Grace and her husband teamed up to raise an army of 2,000 men to insure his succession. He not only got the title, but was named a Baron as well, in exchange for his promise of fealty to English law. But Crown agents had already set their sights on Grace O'Malley as the kind of noteworthy adversary whose arrest or death would send a message throughout the Emerald Isle, and Grace was eventually forced to sail to London to seek an audience with Queen Elizabeth herself, an effort in which she prevailed handily. Grace's story is full of courage, vengeance, and daring-do, but it's also a story rooted in specific moment in time, when the longstanding society of Ireland was changing and being changed. Ireland's Pirate Queen Grace O'Malley saw it all up close, and as a most unconventional woman, charted her own course through. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. To advertise on this podcast, reach out to info@amplitudemediapartners.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    51 min

  2. 12 SEPT

    The Difficult Sister | Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowden

    When Queen Elizabeth II was born in 1926, there were years of her childhood that were, compared to other future monarchs, quite normal. After all, she was never supposed to be the Queen. Her father was a second son; her Uncle David would succeed her grandfather, and certainly other male children would come along. And then, in 1930, Elizabeth's parents waited with anticipation to find out the gender of Elizabeth's impending sibling. A boy would be in the line of succession. But the child who arrived was Princess Margaret, who was never supposed to be the daughter and sister of Queens herself, but for the fateful choice her Uncle David would make when Margaret was just six, when everything changed. This episode follows Margaret through a tumultuous childhood, an early doomed romance, and her long, if ill-fated marriage to Antony Armstrong-Jones, eventually the Earl of Snowden. We visit Mustique, the Caribbean island where Margaret's only personal land holdings resided, and meet some of the guests she entertained there. Plus, an assortment of stories about the social life of a notoriously difficult Princess - and why hanging with Margaret wasn't everything it was cracked up to be. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. To advertise on this podcast, reach out to info@amplitudemediapartners.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 29m

  3. 5 SEPT

    Royal Family Feud: Charlemagne's Great-Grandkids & Pope Stephen VI's Cadaver Synod (ft. Pope Formosus)

    Charlemagne, The Father of Europe, died in the year 814 and left only one surviving son to take the helm of the Carolingian Empire, which spanned the lion's share of the European continent. But his heir, Louis the Pious, had three sons, who each got a parcel of the empire when he died. Then those kings had children of their own, dividing the kingdom up until factions and branches of Charlemagne's lineage occupied independent power centers from the border of modern Denmark all the way down to Italy south of Rome. Our story today involves several of those Carolingian kings, and two priests who would become popes. Bishop Formosus served the Vatican as a diplomat on numerous missions in Europe, developing close ties to the Frankish kings to the north of Rome, the sons of the sons of Charlemagne. When his winding road to the Papacy finally made him Pope Formosus, he found himself at odds - even militarily - with the southern wing of the family, the Dukes of Spoleto, the sons of the daughters of Charlemagne. After Formosa's death, the Dukes of Spoleto reasserted their power, installing a new pope, Stephen VI, who exacted the southern family's revenge on Formosus and their northern kin by exhuming Formosus's rotten corpse and holding an infamously gruesome public trial. Formosus was obviously convicted, but the episode condemned Stephen VI in the moment and for the ages. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. To advertise on this podcast, reach out to info@amplitudemediapartners.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    37 min

  4. 29 AUG

    Sultan Ibrahim the Mad of the Ottoman Empire

    Content note: This episode contains descriptions of sexual violence and coercion that may not be appropriate for all listeners. Though only in power for eight years, the Ottoman Empire's Ibrahim the Mad made his own mark on history as a notoriously bad ruler, a sexual deviant, but also a bit of a fashion plate. He loved his furs and sparkly jewels. He also made unwise decisions in foreign affairs, as when he responded to pirates by launching what would turn into a 24-year-long war with the Republic of Venice. As wars do, this led to supply chain disruptions and tax increases that eventually led to angry mobs and mass upheaval in Constantinople. Ibrahim was deposed in an uprising of the Janissary corp, the elite household guard of the Ottoman Sultans. He was strangled to death, as was the custom, in August of 1648. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. To advertise on this podcast, reach out to info@amplitudemediapartners.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    41 min

  5. 28 AUG

    Introducing American Prankster: Wavy Gravy's Life Story

    We are excited to share a show we're loving with you! American Prankster: Wavy Gravy's Life Story pairs the legendary entertainer and activist with our friend, podcaster Rainbow Valentine, following the incredible ride of a life that Wavy Gravy has been on through decades of American counterculture. Enjoy this sample, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    6 min

  6. 22 AUG

    Empress Wu Zetian, China's Only Female Monarch

    In its many thousands of years of history, China has had only one official ruling monarch who was a woman. Sure, there were powerful Empress Consorts who pulled the strings of weak Emperor husbands, but Empress Wu Zetian ambitiously, and ruthlessly, upended convention to claim the throne in her own name. Born to a prosperous and well-connected family sometimes in the first half of the 620s, Wu joined the Imperial Court at the age of 14 in the privileged position of concubine to the Emperor. Instead, she became a trusted scribe and advisor who was sent to live out her life in a monastery after his death. But his son, Emperor Gaozong, brought her back to court, where she promptly began having babies with him, something his official wife was never able to do. It took many years, but through devious, even violent means, Wu Zeitan would clear the Court of all rivals to her power and become Gaozong's legal wife, and Empress Consort of China. This was an open door to full control of China; Wu Zeitan only needed to walk through it - and she did. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. To advertise on this podcast, reach out to info@amplitudemediapartners.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    36 min

  7. 15 AUG

    Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia, The Luckiest Romanov

    As the Romanov era closed, some family members were more fortunate than others. Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, youngest daughter of Tsar Alexander III and baby sister of the doomed Tsar Nicholas II, may be the most fortunate of the Romanov clan, escaping the country and living out a happy life in Denmark and Canada. Born into a large, loving, royal family that summered with the horde of European royal relatives at her grandfather's castle in Denmark - this was Christian IX, the so-called "father-in-law of Europe" - where she and her cousins, including Queen Victoria's nine children, spent genuinely happy family time together. An arranged marriage was had, but suited neither Olga nor her gay husband, Peter. When she did eventually fall in love with a young soldier named Nikolai, Peter refused to grand the divorce Olga asked for, but hired Nikolai into the household and seemingly approved of their relationship. Her brother, perhaps sensing the rising tide that would sweep Imperial Russia away, finally annulled her marriage in 1916, allowing her finally wed Nikolai after more than a decade. As the Bolsheviks advanced, Olga and Nikolai, her mother, and her sister, fled to Crimea, and eventually escaping to Denmark. Decades later, World War II put the Soviet army on the move in Europe, and fearing for their safety, Olga and her family made one last big move, to Canada. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. To advertise on this podcast, reach out to info@amplitudemediapartners.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 15m

  8. 8 AUG

    Ming Dynasty Emperors Hongwu, Yongle, and Zhengde

    Most Americans have at least a basic sense of key elements of European history, but that's not necessarily true when it comes to places like China. And that's true for us, too. Today we take our first dive into China's extremely long history - 4,000 years by some accounts! - to meet three notably trashy emperors of the Ming Dynasty, which ruled China from 1368 to 1644. Hongwu Emperor was the first Ming Emperor, who seized the throne after a long-running rebellion against the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. He is credited with various reforms, which unfortunately often took the form of purges, which were carried out as bloodily as you would fear. Yongle Emperor unseated his own nephew to take the throne, then dispatched everyone associated with his short reign. Zhengde Emperor was a foppish drunkard who preferred visiting the animals and people he'd installed in his Imperial Zoo to governing, and met a ridiculous end at just 29 years old. Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast. To advertise on this podcast, reach out to info@amplitudemediapartners.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    44 min
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About

Whether it's the debauchery of ancient Roman emperors, the Tudor crime family, the shenanigans behind the Chair of St. Peter, or the Austrian elites’ attempts to save themselves by trading their daughters to other royal houses, it turns out that our betters have always been among our worst. Join Alicia and Stacie from Trashy Divorces as we turn our jaded eyes to a different kind of moral garbage fire: Trashy Royals! Thursdays. Brought to you by Hemlock Creatives.

Information

  • Creator
    Hemlock Creatives
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2024
  • Episodes
    81
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2018-2023 Hemlock Creatives
  • Show Website
    Trashy Royals

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