Vulgar History Podcast
Peggy Shippen, Part Two
August 7, 2024
Ann Foster:
Hello, Tits Out Brigade. Before we start the episode, I have a big announcement to make! I’m going on a trip. I’m going to be in England and I’m going to be in Scotland to research my book that I’m writing. Did you hear? I’m writing a book about Caroline of Brunswick. Anyway, while I’m there, I know that some of you live in those places and so I have pencilled in some time to meet up with Tits Out Brigade members in those cities, the cities being Edinburgh, Scotland and London, England. We’ll be meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland on Wednesday, August 21st and in London, England on Wednesday, August 28th. Details are still being figured out, partially because I don’t know how many of you are going to be there, which will mean where we meet or not. But it’s going to be something like we’ll meet somewhere in a public open space and walk around looking at some oldy-timey things, is my hope. Anyway, details are still being figured out. If you want to take part, let me know! Go to VulgarHistory.com/Meetup and fill in the form for updates. This is the first-ever Tits Out Brigade meetup(s) and I’m really excited to make this happen. So yeah, VulgarHistory.com/Meetup to sign up for updates and to RSVP so I know how many people to expect.
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Hello, and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women’s history comedy podcast. My name is Ann Foster, and this is part two of our discussion of Peggy Shippen, who is, as was described to me, by one of you who sent me a message, excited that we’re talking about her. She’s the original, the OG, scandalous lady of American Revolution era. Also, as a few of you have told me, she does appear as a character in a miniseries that was called Turn: Washington’s Spies, which I haven’t watched, but which seems like it’s kind of like the American Revolution, but what if everyone was really hot? And what’s crucial about this is that, well, first of all, Knesia Solo plays Peggy Shippen, she was on Lost Girl, a Canadian lesbian show that I enjoyed. She’s a cool person, a very cool-looking person and I feel like Peggy Shippen would have been in good hands with her portrayal.
Also, John André is on the show, the character who… I haven’t done a recap at all of last week, but I feel like if you’re jumping into Part Two of Peggy Shippen, welcome. Last time we talked about her, she was trying to live her brat summer, and then it all got pretty derailed when she married Benedict Arnold, and everything got really fucked up. She ended up being a spy kind of against her will. She’s a teen mom living in the woods. But the shining light in this whole story of dirtbags is John André, hot British spy, John André. We’re going to talk about him a lot more in this episode. I was really happy that the defining feature of his portrayal on the show Turn: Washington’s Spies is that he was hot. And I was just really gratified to see that because talking about him, I just felt like he was hot, and so I’m glad that the makers of that show felt that as well, and that that is how he can be remembered now.
Also, we’re talking about Philadelphia. There’s a lot of Philly in the episode. This week, Philadelphia really, really… the way that people talk about Philadelphia now, I think it’s a city that, as long as it’s been around, it seems like it’s been known for a citizenship, a population, that is just… They keep their pots and pans right beside the door, like, they’re ready, 24 hours a day, to riot if needed. And we got some of that in this week’s episode. I feel like Gritty, the beloved mascot of Philadelphia, I think it’s of the Philadelphia hockey team, but I feel like it’s of Philadelphia in general, the big orange, like, sort of Muppet, googly-eyed guy. I feel like Gritty, the spirit of Gritty, was definitely, definitely around in a lot of the stuff we’re talking about in this episode. Anyway, Peggy Shippen, Part Two. Take it away, me.
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Anyway, she knew her job was to help him, she had to seem like a cute wife and use her hotness to distract people and make him seem less suspicious. So, one night, [chuckles] she had quite a lot of work to do because Benedict Arnold, again, terrible at being a spy.
So, they’re having dinner, like a dinner party one night and one of the guests was a person who was, like, a suspected Loyalist. And then Benedict Arnold was being, like, weirdly friendly with him and people were like, “Why has Benedict Arnold been so friendly with that suspected Loyalist? Is he a spy?” They were already thinking. And then a messenger arrived at the door with a sealed letter, which Benedict Arnold unsealed and read not out loud, although you’d think he would be dumb enough to do that. He looked at the letter in front of everybody, and he got all shifty-eyed, and then he like shoved the letter in his pocket. He’s like, “Nope, nothing, nothing to see here. Don’t worry about what that letter just said.” And then he and some other guys left, leaving Peggy behind, like, jittery and nervous. And like, this is just kind of, she’s doing her best, but she is still, you know, an 18-year-old new mom, married to a spy who is a bad spy who just did some bad spy stuff in front of other people.
So, she was left behind and she started chatting “hysterically.” Like, she just started babbling, really, just like, “Oh, what’s Benedict Arnold doing? I don’t know. Anyway, like, did you see the new episode of The Housewives? Oh, it’s great.“ And so, people are like, “Hemings, Peggy seems nervous.” She, just in terms of people to be a spy couple, neither of them seems fundamentally suited to that life. Like, they’re not like that show with Keri Russell and her husband, where they were, like, Russian spies, that’s not the vibe of these two. So, Benedict Arnold is kept being the most obvious worst spy in various ways. John André is just like, “Oh my god, like, this guy is a terrible spy.”
So, there’s a whole thing where Benedict Arnold had drawn, like, maps of West Point and what it looked like to get to the British so the British would know how to better invade. And then he met, under cover of darkness with John André, hot violin spy, and like, they met alongside the bank of the river and then Benedict Arnold was like, “Hey, I think I should be paid more money about my spy work,” and John André is like, “No. Can I have the maps?” or whatever. And they argued about this, like it was nighttime when they met, you know, like 2:00 AM or something and they kept talking until like dawn broke, and they’re like, “Okay, we need to stop doing this because someone’s going to see us because we’re bad spies.”
Anyway, ultimately, Benedict Arnold did give these maps and information on West Point to John André, who put these things in his boots. There’s a whole thing where John André, he showed up and he was wearing his red coat, British army outfit, which is like, okay, interesting choice. But then they’re like, “No, you should wear a disguise. You should go and civilian clothes to deliver these to the British army because then you’ll be less suspicious,” or something. But again, I love you, John André, but you are also not a good spy. Map drawing is your skill set, party planning. But anyway, so things are very much on edge. Is there a play about this weekend? Because, you know, it’s all in one room in one house and just, like, everyone is getting increasingly unhinged.
So, the day started, Benedict Arnold is back at home, and he got into a screaming argument with somebody about the price of butter. And then some guests came by who were the Marquis de Lafayette and Alexander Hamilton from the musical Hamilton, and George W; they’re George W’s friends and George W came as well. And what had happened, the news they were coming there to share is that John André… So, he’d gone off in his, like, civilian clothes with the maps and stuff, and then he was caught by someone, and he was like, “Oh, I think these guys are probably Loyalists.” So, he’s like, “Hey, are you guys also loyal to the British crown or whatever?” And then the guys were like, “No, actually, we’re Patriots. Like, what’s going on?” And then they saw that he had papers in his boots, and they took them out, but those guys couldn’t read. So, at first, it was fine. But then they, like, brought him in and then it was discovered that these were maps of West Point. And so, Benedict Arnold, not necessarily compromised at this point, but John André arrested.
So, George W, Lafayette, and Alexander Hamilton came by to be like, “Whoa, man, did you know that that guy, John André, the party planner was just caught with these maps?” And Benedict Arnold was like, “Wow, crazy news. I’m just gonna go to West Point and… See you all later.” And he just like peaces out before they know that he’s involved.
Peggy, he had had time to talk to Peggy before he made his exit. So, Peggy is left behind. And we know fundamentally, like, I would probably be similar, she’s just not good under pressure. So, she’s just like, “Okay, what are we going to do?” So, she burned his secret spy letters in the bedroom fireplace and then she’s like, “How are we going to handle this? Peggy, what are we going to do?” And so, this is like one of the most famous things she did. There’s an episode of Drunk History about her doing this. And what she did was she’s like, “I’m going to pretend like I just found out Benedict Arnold is a spy and I’m now insane. That news made me go insane and have a nervous breakdown.” This works because, like, there was recently that thing where she was just like babbling incoherently, like, she had that screaming fit at that party one time when she heard the news about his job. She’s known for being a person who has fits. And so, she’s just like, “I’m just going to go for it.” So, she just started screaming, her hair is dishevelled, she tore out her clothes, she was raving and all the men in the house were like, Oh man, what’s wrong with Peggy Shippen? It seems like she’s going through some emotional distress.” And they were so distracted helping her that Benedict Arnold was able to escape.
Meanwhile, George W is like, “Meet you at West Point,” and George W goes there and he’s like, “Why isn’t Benedict Arnold here?” Hamilton Lafayette told him about the betrayal, like, the fact that he had been in league with John André and that they were going to try and have the British seize West Point. George W, it’s his turn now. You know, pressures are high and all sorts. He freaks out, he’s yelling like, “Go and catch Benedict Arnold!” But our boy, Benedict Arnold was already on a pre-arranged ship out of town, headed to British-controlled New York City.
Meanwhile, Peggy Shippen just kept playing up the part of like hysterical person, which also I think partially she was doing because that meant, like, “This makes me seem, like, not implicated,” it makes it seem like she didn’t know the Benedict Arnold was doing this. And in fact, George W, Hamilton and Lafayette came out to visit her and they’re like, “Oh wow, this… She has actually lost her mind. We’re not suspicious of her whatsoever. This is how we would assume a wife would react to learning her husband is a traitor.” And because everyone kind of loves Peggy, Hamilton was just like, he wrote in the thing, “I’m so mad that Benedict Arnold betrayed America, but I’m even more mad that he betrayed Peggy,” his lovely teenage wife.
Anyway, so she’s just left there with baby Neddy. Benedict Arnold has gone to New York and she’s just like, “What am I going to do? Am I going to…” It’s a real Mary Queen of Scots, deciding between France and England moment for her. She’s like, “Do I go to New York to be with my husband? Or do I go back to Philadelphia to be with my parents?” And eventually, she’s like, “I’m going to go back to Philadelphia to be with my parents.” On the way there, she’s taking the Benedict Arnold carriage, which people recognized and they, like, jeered and called out at it because he was already… Everyone had found out that he was a traitor, and everyone hated him. People didn’t need a lot of reason, everyone already hated him but now they also hated him for being a traitor. And I don’t know how different carriages can look from each other, but I picture that the Benedict Arnold carriage was covered with, you know, like decals, like a car when it’s advertising a real estate company or something.
Anyway, so it took a while to get from West Point to Philadelphia. She had a baby with her so at night she’d stop at friends’ houses. One of the places where she spent a night was with Theodosia Prevost, who is the Theodosia from the song “Theodosia” from Hamilton. She’s, like, a married woman who Aaron Burr was in love with and then later he married. So, allegedly, according to Theodosia’s later husband, Aaron Burr from the musical Hamilton, allegedly Peggy confided to Theodosia that she had been faking being upset, she was tired of having to perform all the time, and that she had corresponded with John André– Which some of this is maybe true, but also, allegedly, Aaron Burr had… There’s a whole thing about, like, did Aaron Burr at one point try to seduce Peggy and she turned him down so Aaron Burr was mad at Peggy? I don’t know. Anyway, I just wanted to include that because it’s Hamilton-adjacent content.
Anyway, back in Philadelphia, the newspapers were just like, “This is amazing. This is even bigger than Scandoval. This is the biggest… We’re going to sell so many newspapers talking about the story.” One of John André’s letters to Peggy was discovered, the one where he was like, “Hey, let’s talk about fabrics and stuff and nothing suspicious.” Like, there was nothing suspicious in the letter, but the fact that he had written a letter to her made her seem like she was involved. Her family, her powerful family, the Shippens were like, “No, no, no, that was just a letter about fabric.” And this is called “the millinery letter,” and it’s like, if you read about Peggy Shippen, this comes up a lot, it’s sort of the Casket Letters of the story. This is before she got there.
So, Philadelphia, like again, the vibe is so similar to those, like, sports things where people in Philadelphia flood the streets and just, like, climb the poles. Like, Philadelphia itself just causes people to behave this way. So, there was this sort of impromptu, not so impromptu actually, just like, a “We hate Benedict Arnold” parade. So, a drum summoned Philadelphia residents to the streets where some arts and crafts people, again, I would say John André, except he’s currently under arrest and he was actually on the same side, some John André-like arts and crafts person has created a dummy version effigy of Benedict Arnold, which is now parading through the streets in a wagon. So, this dummy, this is very artistic, had two faces.
It held a mask in his right hand. In the left hand, the figure clutched a message from Satan announcing his completion of mischief. Behind the dummy stood Satan, shaking a bag of money at the general’s left ear and grasping a pitchfork poised to drive the traitor into hell.
So, they paraded this around and then later set it on fire. So, quite a thing that some very artistic person came up with. But also, this gets into the whole thing about the American Founding Fathers and how the Declaration of Independence has the authority of like the Bible or God, like, the concept that the founding of America was divine somehow, like god wanted that to happen, to the extent that Benedict Arnold is not equated with Satan. Betraying America is the same as, like, betraying Jesus is the vibe. And this happened right away. But I guess tensions were already high and the city of Philadelphia already kind of hated him.
And then, just like in that final scene in the movie Cruel Intentions, people are going through Benedict Arnold’s stuff, his house because he lived in Philadelphia. Among his letters, they found a letter from Peggy to him. And in this letter, she’s being, sort of like, catty and bitchy and talking about how the other women at a concert, like, their outfits weren’t as cute as her outfit or whatever. This was published in the newspaper. And it’s like “Peggy is a bitch! Look at her writing this mean girl letter. She’s not this sweet, young victim, she’s actually this mean girl.” And it’s like, “Yes, she was,” but also… Publishing it in a newspaper? And also, it’s like her private letter, it’s like showing somebody’s DMs. It’s just like, “Well, this was intended… She was just being silly and writing some like bitchy stuff to her husband.” She’s also, at the time, 17.
Anyway, so Peggy goes back to her parent’s home, and she goes into kind of a stupor. And I don’t want to be like, her various psychological experiences are invalid. Like her throwing a tantrum to get what she wants from her dad is a thing. But her having these serious emotional responses to these events is, like, she’s an emotional person. Maybe she wouldn’t have been living a more normal life, but this is quite a series of situations she’s been in since the day she got married. So, she just kind of went into a stupor, understandable. Like, if it was today, she’d go to her parent’s house and just, like, stay in her pyjamas all day, just, you know, watching Friends episodes and just eating Doritos. Like she’s just like, “What the fuck is my life? I used to be this hot, young society girl and now, like, there’s an effigy of my husband being with Satan. What is happening?”
To the confusion of everybody, she remained loyal to Benedict Arnold. She did not turn away from him, she still kept supporting him. When he wrote her a letter, she would respond to it. And her family were like, “Really? Peggy, really?” And then Emma Roberts and the Supreme Executive Council kicked her out of Philadelphia. They, in fact, wrote a letter being like, “You can’t live here, lady.” Her being there was a public danger to others. And so, she’s like, “I guess I’m going to go to New York City,” especially took her baby, Neddy, tearfully bid farewell to her beloved dad who still loved her as his favourite and went off to NYC.
But I know you’re wondering what happened to John André. Now, John André, I forget if I said this, but in my survey, only 12.6% of the 300 Americans surveyed had heard of John André. So, I need to let you know what happens to him because it’s interesting. So, he was caught and ordered to be hanged as a traitor, which is interesting because how was he a traitor when he was actually a British person, just doing British… ? Like, he wasn’t a traitor, he was actually always on one side, which was the British side. Anyway, so even before his execution though, he had aroused the sympathy of British and American people because what I just said, it’s kind of like, “Well, he’s just kind of doing his thing, like, he’s just being a British soldier and that’s what he did.” But he was ordered to be hanged in Tappan, New York. If anyone has been there or lives there, shout out to Tappan, New York. So, he walked the gallows, he was watched by apparently many sobbing women, one of whom apparently gave him a peach. “When he was hanged, that peach layer grew into a tree above his grave. For there was a peach tree above his grave.” He was buried where he was hanged basically in Tappan, New York, below the site of his hanging and this tree and this hymn is mentioned in the story, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving, which is a story with Ichabod Crane, and they talk about this tree was haunted by John André in that story, apparently.
Later on, years and years from now, we’ve got a lot more episode to go, but when Peggy died and her children were going among her belongings, they found among her belongings the locket that John André had given her with a lock of his hair inside. So, she was a good friend to him.
John André became a romantic hero in England because, you know, the story of him being a spy and then being executed, but also, he was like hot and threw parties so people in England were like, “You know what? Fuck you, America. You killed our cool guy.” So, a tomb to his memory was erected two years later in London in Westminster Abbey. If I ever get to Westminster Abbey, the number of people I’ve talked about on this podcast who have tombs there, like, I’m going to have to spend a day seeing them all. The tomb was paid for by the person who was the king at this time, George III, AKA Farmer George from Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story. And the tomb, it’s one of those carved things with like scenes on it. It’s scenes of, like, George Washington and a woman crying and just showing John André being a hero.
40 years after that, at the request of the royal family, his remains were moved from America (because he was buried in Tappan) to London. So now, he’s buried in Westminster Abbey as well. And there’s like a little tile on the floor showing it says like “Major André,” I think. And when they went to dig him up after this, on the banks of the Hudson River, “the roots of the peach tree had pierced the coffin.” So, the peach tree was uprooted and replanted in the King’s Garden behind Carlton House in London. John André is often remembered favourably by historians as a man of honour, unlike, for instance, Benedict Arnold. John André was always loyal to the one side. “Several prominent US leaders of the time, including Alexander Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette, did not agree with him being hanged.” In Tappan, in 1879, so like 100 years later, on the site of his hanging, a monument was erected. On the monument are lines from George W, which says, “He was more unfortunate than criminal, an accomplished man and a gallant officer.”
So, I wanted to tell you that to wrap up the story of John André, a person who I had not heard of and most of you had also not heard of, only 12.6% of Americans surveyed had heard of him. He just seemed like a cool guy. He’s got a bit of David Rizzio vibes about him. And like David Rizzio, died very young.
But also, let’s just compare him to Benedict Arnold. John André, cool guy, Benedict Arnold… You know, I came to this episode, I’m like, okay, Peggy Shippen, I know she’s the wife of Benedict Arnold. I vaguely thought, like, I think she was maybe a spy? I think I saw this on Drunk History. And I was like, you know, these people get a bad rap. Benedict Arnold, like, I know he’s famous, his name is synonymous in the US with just being a traitor. I think I’d first heard about him, there’s an episode of my favourite show, Murder, She Wrote, called, I think “Benedict Arnold Slept Here,” where there’s a whole thing about a house where he apparently slept at one point. Anyway, from that episode, and also, I think he appears maybe in Timeless, the late lamented time travel TV show that used to be on NBC, I think he was involved in that. So, I just kind of had this vibe like, “Benedict Arnold, oh, he sucks, he’s a traitor.” But then it’s like, “Oh, but is this just like, you know, is this just history being shared where it’s like “George W and Thomas Jefferson were heroes,” and so that means Benedict Arnold has to suck also. But I’m here to tell you, Benedict Arnold was a traitor and also, a shitty person. Peggy, just along for the ride, in my opinion.
So anyway, five days after the execution of John André, Benedict Arnold wrote a letter to the editor, because he’s the sort of guy, and you know, the whole newspapers of it all, of course, he wrote a letter to the editor of a New York City newspaper, where he’s just like, “Blah, blah, blah! You’re all assholes, I’m great. John André shouldn’t have been killed, blah, blah.” He’d now officially switched sides. He was now getting a salary as a British army person. When the salary was enough to pay for him to live in a townhouse, you know, I’ve got some sites, if you’re in New York City, things you can see, he lived at 3 Broadway. Several efforts were made to kidnap him because he was the most hated person in America. He had been a member of the Connecticut Freemasons, because I think he’s from Connecticut, they blotted his name from the list of members. Even the Freemasons were just like, “Fuck this guy.”
So, his hometown, residents of his hometown went to the graveyard or the cemetery, and they smashed up the grave markers of his father and his infant brother who had been buried there. And in various cities, other people did their own version of, like, Benedict Arnold Satan effigies to, like, parade through the streets and burn. You know, he had been brought to Philadelphia to sort of bring everyone together to try and make the two sides coexist. But I think where he did make more, like… He had been brought to Philadelphia to try and make everyone be sort of on Team George W. And in fact, I think he did bring everyone together in America, in hatred of him. I think both sides hated him, basically.
Peggy Shippen. Don’t forget about her. She is, by now, 20 years old. She’s had quite an action-packed, like, year-and-a-half of married life. But she’s in New York City and she’s like, “Okay, like, who are the hot girls? Where are the hot nightclubs? Let me get my tits out and like, you know, try and improve my husband’s reputation by being hot.” So, she’s trying to be sort of like a goodwill ambassador for her husband’s reputation, which was toxic. She also became pregnant again.
So, Benedict Arnold, he has his army job for the Brits because he had experience being military guy, so he was given a job to lead some British soldiers in Virginia, which led to a situation that maybe people in Virginia are familiar with. So, at this time, Thomas Jefferson, who I want to say, of everybody on my list of people, Thomas Jefferson, 99.7% of Americans surveyed are familiar with Thomas Jefferson. Anyway, Thomas Jefferson at this point is the governor. So, Benedict Arnold led some troops in Virginia, he had an argument with Thomas Jefferson about tobacco crops, and this whole thing wrapped up with Benedict Arnold vengefully ordering the burning of the city of Richmond, in which lots of people died. So yeah. So again, it’s just, like, the American Revolution was not settled. Like, it still seems like the British could win it. But Benedict Arnold started being bored, he’s like, “I want a better job, I want more money. And so, I went back to New York City,” and stopped leading troops.
So, he had been away for six months doing all this stuff burning Richmond, et cetera, during which time Peggy away from him, now entering her, like, adulthood era, she thrived. She was very pregnant which I just mentioned, because she didn’t hide— She wasn’t having serious issues where she was like hideaway in the house or whatever. She was just like, [Hepburn meows] “I’m pregnant. I got my tits out. Let’s just like meet the other hot, young socialites.” So, she became the it-girl, belle of society now in New York City as well. She had a second baby, a son named James Robertson.
Benedict Arnold took another job where he was, like, leading another battle scenario. One thing led to another and in this one, a ship filled with gunpowder exploded due to his negligence, which made everybody on every side of this war mad at him. So, kind of [Hepburn meows] … Yeah, Hepburn is here. What are your thoughts on Benedict Arnold? No one liked him. I appreciate that at the time people hated him because sometimes there’s a thing after the fact, but I just like someone who, like him is shitty, in his lifetime, he knew he was hated. And do you remember so much of this started where he was concerned about his reputation and that’s why he’s like “I want a court martial,” and stuff. Where it’s just like his reputation could not be worse, hashtag, quoting from Taylor Swift. So, his whole life is the Reputation era, Benedict Arnold.
Anyway, so eventually the British surrendered in 1781 and that was the end of the American Revolution, more or less. So, Team George W had won, and Benedict Arnold and Peggy were like, “Let’s leave the country, everyone on this continent hates us,” or Benedict, everyone loved Peggy. So, they decided to go to London, England. So, they sailed over on separate ships. Peggy was on a more luxurious comfortable ship with their young children. Benedict Arnold was on a more military ship, and this was good that they were separate. Benedict Arnold’s ship was chased by privateers trying to kidnap him. He had to do a switcheroo, like, change ships. Anyway, eventually he got away.
So, they came over to London, England, and they went to live— People in London, here are some sites you can see. They lived in a handsome five-story townhouse in Portman Square, which is sort of an area where other American Loyalists had moved, like, people who had lived in America for a while, sided with the British, and then fled, the rich ones went to London to live in Portman Square. So, he was introduced to King George III, AKA Farmer George from Queen Charlotte: A Bridgeton Story, and he actually got a private meeting with him, followed by a stroll through St. James Park with the king and his son, Prince of Wales, AKA Prinny, AKA the future husband of Caroline of Brunswick, who was like 18 or 19 years old at this point, Prinny.
So, Peggy arrived and right away, everyone’s just like, “She’s great. We like her.” She was feted as the most beautiful woman in England. She was introduced at court. She met Queen Charlotte from Queen Charlotte: A Bridgeton Story, except not her, the actual boring one. And Queen Charlotte, who, you know, was sort of like dressed out of fashion and was, like, boring, you’d think she’d be like, “Oh, I don’t know about this tits out lady,” but even she loved Peggy. Peggy was great. She took a liking to her. She gave an annuity, which is sort of like a salary of £100 a year to Peggy for the maintenance of her children, those she had and those which were yet to be born. George III also issued a pension on Peggy’s behalf, which may be proof that she had done spy work, because there’s a whole thing about, like, was she a spy or was she just married to a spy? But the fact that she got a pension from the government means, like, she probably did something he was grateful for. Anyway, so Peggy’s great. Everyone loves Peggy. But as per usual, nobody likes Benedict Arnold. One guy said, “Peggy was an admirable woman and was her husband dead, she would be must much noticed.” So, tragically, if you want to hang out with Peggy, Benedict comes along too, unfortunate.
So, Benedict Arnold, he’s just like, “I need some jobs and money.” So, he applied for a position with the East India Company, but he was rejected for that job because the person who was doing the hiring was an American Loyalist. Or no, so that’s on the same team but they’re just like, “We don’t like you, Benedict Arnold.” Even in England, people hated him for his disloyalty. So, even though he’d switched to their side, they didn’t like that he had switched sides. But also, on top of that, he just had an unpleasant personality. Peggy gave birth, a daughter named Margaret, who died after seven months. At the time that baby Margaret died, she was already pregnant again. She’s 22 by this point going on, what, her fourth pregnancy? And everyone still loves her. One person said she was “More noticed and more liked than any American that ever came over. She was visited by people of first rank and invited to all their houses.” So, this next child was named George. He died shortly after birth.
Benedict Arnold kept petitioning for more money from the government. And finally, he’s like, “I’m not going to get a government job or money so I’m just going to establish my own business, which is going to be international trade,” which for him was… So, after the American Revolution, people who had been loyal to Britain left America. So, some of them went to London, like the Arnolds did. And a lot of them went north to Canada, specifically to what is now the province of New Brunswick. So, he was like, “I’m going to go and sell imported goods to the Loyalists in New Brunswick,” was his plan. Peggy, again, she’s pregnant, but when is she not? She’s just getting tired of his get-rich-quick schemes. Her brother-in-law came to visit at one point because we know what she was thinking because there’s a lot of her letters exist back to her family. I think she was so upset that they were like, let’s send somebody. By the way, her family referred to Benedict Arnold as “that infernal villain.” They hated him and they were mystified that she was standing by her man. Anyway, her brother-in-law came to visit and found she seemed relatively content. She gave birth to a daughter named Sophia and the brother stuck around just to make sure Sophia was okay before leaving. And Benedict Arnold went to New Brunswick to start his new business.
When I got to this part of the story, I was just like, “Wow, New Brunswick!” New Brunswick is one of the Canadian provinces and it’s the setting of, if you watch the show on the Hallmark Channel, The Way Home, the time travel show with the pond, but New Brunswick doesn’t get a lot of attention or love. There’s a show that they film there where people competitively make sandcastles. Lots of stuff happens there. There’s a really high tide and a really low tide or something. Anyway, I’m just happy for New Brunswick to be involved in a story because it’s not often mentioned in things. The other Canadian provinces get a lot more attention.
Anyway, so she didn’t hear from him for months. So, she’s just like, “Is he alive? Is he dead? What has happened to my horrible husband?” And the reason she hadn’t heard from him was because towards the end of the Atlantic crossing, he suffered another attack of gout and he fell ill. And so, he had to stick around in Halifax, Nova Scotia. When I came to that, I was just like, “Whaaat?” Because I am sure I’ve said this on the podcast before, but just so listeners know, that’s where I’m from! I grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I’m like, “Benedict Arnold was in Halifax, Nova Scotia?” So, Halifax, Nova Scotia, at this point, was really a British garrison city so I guess that makes sense he was there, but like, wow, Halifax, Nova Scotia, shout out. So, he couldn’t make the rest of the trip himself. He had to hire a pilot and a captain to go the rest of the way on his behalf. And then the ship that those guys were in got stuck, I guess, in like the famous New Brunswick tidal changes, and then scavengers stole a bunch of the goods they’re going to sell. So, just like this whole thing: not going well.
Eventually, Benedict Arnold felt better after his attack of gout and he went ahead to New Brunswick because that one ship, they lost most of those goods, but he had other goods to sell. Basically, he’s just, like, a scammer. He’s just like, “Okay, here’s my latest grift. Let’s just sell stuff.” He bought land in New Brunswick to sell to the Loyalists. He was selling them imported British goods. I don’t know if you have a store like this where you live; if you’re not in England, English people might find this interesting. Sometimes there’s stores that are like British stuff, like a store that sells imported candy and tea and stuff for, like, British people who moved to other countries. Actually, where I live in Saskatoon, Canada, there’s a new store that sells American stuff. So, for people who want to get imported American things, like for instance, from that American store, you can buy Dolly Parton cake mix. Anyway, so he was just starting, like, British goods for Loyalist people in New Brunswick business.
So, one million hours ago, I mentioned he had three sons before he married Peggy and so those three sons, now adults, and he invited them to come up from Connecticut to help him out with this New Brunswick business. He finally went back to Peggy being like, “Hey, guess what? I’m alive and you and our children should come here to New Brunswick as well!” Peggy Shippen, somehow pregnant again, they must have visited at some point, or I guess he left her pregnant? There’s no doubt about who is the father of these children. So, I guess he didn’t write to her for a while and then he came back to visit her, knocked her up, and left again, is what happened. Anyway, so she’s like, “I don’t want to go there.” But Benedict Arnold was like, “Well, if you come to New Brunswick, that’s practically Philadelphia, so you can go and visit your family.” So, she’s like, “Okay.” So, in the last weeks of her pregnancy, she got on an Atlantic ship, she arrived in New Brunswick, she gave birth six weeks after arriving in St. John. And they named the son George after the king of England.
So, in St. John, and these are some, like, if you know… Listeners in New Brunswick, here are some sites you can visit. They lived on the corner of King and Cross Street, which is now Canterbury Street. Things were not great for them there because, like all other North American British colonies at this time, there was a recession due to the ongoing revolutions and things. Peggy was on her own a lot with her, like, increasing amount of very young children. Although she did have help from Benedict Arnold’s sister, the plain-dressed Hannah, who was on the scene to help out, I guess she came up with the adult sons as well. Peggy Shippen, if we’re keeping track is now 29 years old, and she’s still gorgeous, popular, she rallies. She has this real resiliency and ability to be like, “This sucks, but you know what? I’m going to see it through.” She hosted dinners, attended galas, she found some gal pals to hang out with.
And then July 11th of whatever year this is, Benedict Arnold’s warehouse went up in flames. His youngest two sons had been sleeping in the warehouse because they slept in the office as guards. They were both badly burned and barely escaped with their lives. And Benedict Arnold was like, “Okay, so I want to get money back from the insurance company,” and the insurance company was like, “This is obviously arson fraud and you just burned down your own business with your sons inside of it to get money.” One of the people saying that was his business partner. So, then Benedict Arnold accused his business partner of slander. The insurance company was like, “We’re just going to see how this goes.” So, he’s in the midst of, like, another self-made drama. I don’t know if he burned down the warehouse himself or if just, like, someone who hated him did that but either way, I blame him. And Peggy was like, “I’m just going to go visit my family in Philadelphia now, goodbye.”
Her mother had recently had a stroke, which was another reason why this was really important to her and why she decided to do this, even though she was very pregnant, like, the Atlantic crossing. So, she took her youngest baby, little George, as well as an enslaved Black woman. So, note to listeners: there have been enslaved Black people throughout this whole saga, because these are wealthy white people in America at that time, and they all had enslaved Black people with them. So, Peggy went to hang out with her family, but the people in Philadelphia, if you’ll recall, the people of Philadelphia had done things like dedicate the time to make a life-sized papier mache dummy of Benedict Arnold and the devil, like, a day after he was caught for being a traitor. They’re not happy she’s back because they really hate Benedict. Like, the whole country of America seemed to be founded on the principle of “We all hate Benedict Arnold and she’s his wife.” But she loved seeing her family. She hadn’t seen them for what, like even… I don’t even know, 10 years? Seeing them made her even more sad to leave, which, you know, relatable content. And so, she went back to New Brunswick and she’s like, “Can we go back to maybe England where people hate us less and I have friends there?” And Benedict Arnold was like, “Well, we can’t because I’m in the middle of this like insurance scam trial.”
18 months later, the Supreme Court in Fredericton, New Brunswick decided that his partner was guilty of slander, I don’t know about the insurance fraud though. Anyway, so Benedict Arnold has sued his business partner for slander, and he had said “I want £5,000 pounds,” but the court was, like, “Uhh, 20 shillings.” So, he was mad about this and newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic because now all of England also hated him, just wrote scathing newspaper articles about how Benedict Arnold sucked, which were accurate newspaper articles. “One night, soon after the trial, a mob appeared before his home smashing windows and doors.” And then somehow, they had an effigy. People in this era were just real effigy makers. So, they smashed his windows, the doors, then they came into the house, and they paraded through the house with an effigy of him that said ‘Traitor’ on it. Like, Peggy and the children are home watching this all happen and then there was a street riot that became so violent that soldiers had to intervene to calm things down and they went back to England after that, leaving his sister and his burnt adult sons to manage his scam of a business.
So, back in London… So, a duel happened. Rumours came out in the newspapers that Benedict Arnold had died in a duel. Peggy was like, “Okay no, he didn’t die in a duel.” Like, she wrote a letter because her father wrote a letter, I guess, being like, “Hey, the newspaper said your husband died in a duel. Like, I hope that’s true. Is he dead?” And Peggy’s like, “No, no, there was a duel. He didn’t die.” What had happened was some guy insulted Benedict Arnold, like everyone did every day. Benedict Arnold demanded an apology and in fact, he wrote a template for the guy to sign being like, “I (fill in your name here) apologize to Benedict Arnold, signed (name).” The guy wouldn’t sign the letter and then Benedict Arnold challenged him to a duel. And this is, you know, the era of Hamilton, the musical, which also famously has duels in it. So, they did a duel. They both had their… They went to a park, like, you stand back-to-back, they both had their seconds. Peggy stayed home just being like, “My husband is a nightmare in increasingly unhinged ways.” What happened was Benedict Arnold fired first, but he missed. And the other guy was like, “I dare you to shoot again.” And Benedict Arnold was like, “No, that’s against the rules of duels.” So, neither of them died.
Somehow, this situation made people appreciate Benedict Arnold for courage and duelling, like, the fact that he didn’t shoot again when he could have made people be like, “That was cool of him.” So, he was like, “This is great. King George, can you pay me more money now that I’m popular?” He also applied for military posts. He didn’t get more money and he didn’t get the military posts, but just his reputation got, like, one point better. So, he’s like, “You know what I’m going to do? Like, again, I’m not getting money from the government. I’m going to go back to my roots of being a self-owned business grifter and I’m going to sell two of my New Brunswick ships to fund a privateer,” which is like a pirate, but legal. So, he was going to fund a privateer vessel, which would attack the French and he wanted to get in to, like, trade in the West Indies/the Caribbean region again. Peggy, who is pregnant, again. Just, if I don’t say, just assume she always is. It was just like, “Are you fucking kidding me? Oh my god, can you please grow up?” Like, yes, she was a child when they married, but now she is like in her thirties and she’s just like fully aware of what a disaster this man is with his constant get-rich-quick schemes.
So, he was going to go to the Caribbean in March 1794, but then his departure was delayed because of the weather. And you know who arrived around the same time due to the weather? The arrival of a ship of exiles, rich people fleeing France from the reign of terror. So, that is a connection to the overall season theme, Marie Antoinette, the French Revolution, like, this is all happening at the same time. I included that detail just to remind you, like, this is all happening at the same time. He did eventually, like, his ship was able to leave, the weather cleared. And so, he went to trade English goods. So again, he’s just opening up an English goods store in places where, like, you know, immigrant English people are living. So, he’s selling these in Saint Kitts, and then he went on to the Guadeloupe Island of Grande-Terre, which the day he arrived was, like, the French arrived and took it over and he was captured and put on a prison ship, like, if he’d arrived one day earlier, that wouldn’t have happened to him. So, he is a shitty person who also has just very bad timing and luck.
So, he’s in prison. Peggy doesn’t know what’s going on. Three weeks later (from his being put on a prison ship, John Knox vibes) Peggy gave birth again to a son that she named William Fitch named after one of their neighbours in London. And then Benedict Arnold, I’ll give him credit for this because this is pretty cool. So, he bribed his guards in the prison ship and made a daring escape, which comprised of he squeezed through the cabin window of the prison ship, shimmied down a rope onto a raft, Mary Queen of Scots vibes, paddled through shark-infested waters to a small boat, which he rode to a British ship. The captain of that ship was impressed by his moxie, I guess, and rewarded him with some new jobs, like, I think an army job and also being in charge of something in Guadeloupe for the British army.
So, he stayed in Guadeloupe for a year, then returned to London, where Peggy, by now 35 years old, had become an invalid because of… Like, she’s always been, I would say, an anxious person. She’s a person who feels emotions deeply. Like again, just trying to parse out when you read about her, there’s a lot of stuff where it’s like, “Oh, she would pitch a fit to get her way,” where it’s like, well, maybe she was actually that upset. Like, anyway… So, all this stuff, like, her husband went missing. She’s having children all the time. He came back and found that she was basically bedridden because of her nerves, because of financial worries. Her mother had died in Philadelphia. She was just, she’s 35 and having, I don’t know, that’s not quite a quarter-life crisis, but it’s like midlife crisis. She’s just like, “Peace out, like, my brain. Let’s just fuck everything.”
So, Benedict Arnold too, his credit was like, “Oh, I’ve ruined this woman’s life. I’m going to try and help.” So, he took her to the baths in Cheltenham, to the ocean near Surrey. But one thing that did, I don’t know if that helped, fresh air, whatever, but one event that did cheer her up was that her father sent a portrait of himself. And she loved her father so much, like, she’d always been his favourite. Actually, at around that same time, for the first time in one of her letters, she admitted for the first time that marrying Benedict Arnold had bankrupted her vitality and spirit. So, this is part of where she’s just having this real Aha! moment of just, like… Because, you know, she was with him for so long and from a really young age and everything was kind of like, “Well, who’s going to win the war? Maybe what we’re doing is good.” But now she’s just like, “Oh no, this guy suuuucks. Fuck.”
Okay. So, the years following this Guadeloupe adventure had been economically disastrous for Peggy and their five children. But Benedict Arnold continued to live like a wealthy man because that was what he did. He was, like so many people in this podcast, greatly in debt and terrible with money. So, he moved the family into a new townhouse and Gloucester Place. Peggy was having migraines at this point as well. And he just kept proposing new get-rich-quick schemes, often involving privateers; he had a real thing for just like pirate life.
At one point, so their youngest daughter, Sophia… She’d always been sort of like, her health was not great and for a while, her legs became temporarily paralyzed, Sophia. And Peggy, as a woman, she couldn’t get a job. All she could do is, like, marry well. But it’s like, she’s already married to him. So, she can’t change what she’s doing. She’s just like, “How are we going to provide for our five children? Our one daughter is really sick.” She knew that she would be responsible for the children’s future because her husband was useless. One of the issues she was worried about was paying for their education. So, the oldest sons were 17 and 18. They’d nearly completed their education, planted around the British army, the other three still had years of schooling ahead. And she’s just like, “We have no money. My husband is terrible.”
And then Benedict Arnold’s health suddenly got worse. Or just, I guess you could, I don’t know, I’m sure he had, he had the leg thing and gout and stuff, but just everything kind of got worse in late 1800, early 1801, which was reported in this thing I read as “the effects of repeated gout, general dropsy and disease in the lungs.” He slipped into a coma and Peggy stayed by his side. When he woke up briefly from the coma, he apologized for his failures. Like, you know what? Credit for that, for not waking up and being like, “Everything I did was great!” He’s just like, “Oh, I really fucked up, didn’t I?” And then he died on June 14, 1801. He was buried. His grave site was in St. Mary’s, Battersea, in a crypt that was often used for American Loyalists and Peggy vowed to redeem his reputation. I mean, good luck Peggy but, like, yikes. At least when he’s dead, he can’t make things worse.
This is where, like, there was the first pivot in her life where, or as I see it, first, they fled to New York and then London, and then like, no, when they were at West Point, that’s why I first was just like, oh, she’s stepping up in terms of just being a person who is strong and can… resiliency. She sort of surprised many people when she was able to stick with Benedict through all that stuff, like the time on the run and everything. She was always, sort of like, I don’t know, energetically, is that the word? She was just always, like, passionately trying to improve their lot and to do things, and she pivoted. Resiliency, I guess, is the word, you come back to like unexpected. And this is where again, problematic heroine, Scarlett O’Hara comes to mind where it’s just like both of them were sort of just like teenage belles who were just kind of like not really thinking about what was happening politically around them until suddenly, they were forced to reckon with that. And then both of them drew upon resources and a strength of character maybe they didn’t know they had and did what they could to support their family. So, that’s the vibe here.
So, this is another pivot, she becomes a widow. Her husband is finally dead, and she is free of him. When he was alive, he was shitty and bankrupting them but like, at least she had a husband, like being a single widow is a challenging time, and she’s like, “I will rise up to this challenge.” And so, she did. So, a few weeks after his death, one of her friends wrote how impressed she was with Peggy’s courage and fortitude. For a person who would often… She cried easily, you know, she had these sorts of fits or whatever, but like she’s, you know, pulling herself through this. After his death, Peggy learned the truth of their finances, which was that they were in incredible debt. So, she immediately stopped spending as much, she started changing the lifestyle completely to just be like, “I’m going to balance out these books.”
But also, from his will. So, there’s this thing, one of the beneficiaries of his will is a person, a young man in New Brunswick named John Sage. And so, no one really knows who this guy was. Did Benedict Arnold father an illegitimate child during his time in New Brunswick? Did he have a mistress? Was the mother, like, maybe an Indigenous woman from there? Or maybe did one of his adult sons have an illegitimate child? And Peggy didn’t know, she’s just like, “Who the fuck is John Sage? And why is he getting an inheritance? Like, who is this?” So, she’s just like, “Who did I even marry?” So, he died in 1801. By autumn 1802, she had reduced expenses drastically auctioning off her furniture, silver and other valuable possessions. She rented out their townhouse, she lived in a much smaller place. And her two older sons who had finished their education and were in the military now donated their pensions to help finance the education of their younger siblings. So, she was like, “Should I just go live a quiet life in the countryside?” But she’s like, “No, I’m a city girl. I need to be around people, like, museums, art galleries, parties. That’s who I am, that’s what I want.” Her father was like, “You could return to Philadelphia,” but she’s like, “I’d rather not see like effigy parades of my husband and Satan. So, I’ll stay here in London.”
Much to her credit through all of her actions, she managed to pay off her husband’s debts. She believed that that would help restore his honour, which I mean, honestly, Peggy, I love you, but like, nothing ever could. But I’m just impressed with the paying off of the debts. Good for her. Like being a woman who couldn’t work, she just found a way to make it happen. She also intended to use… Now that she had no debts, but like money, she wanted to help support his sister, Hannah. She wrote a letter to Hannah, plain-dressed Hannah to be like, you know, “Women supporting women, I want to help you out.” And she did.
But she was now very ill, Peggy, with an abdominal tumour. She became bedridden, she was relying on opium as a painkiller. She wrote to her sister at this time:
I do not suffer my spirits to overcome me. I have much to be thankful for, most particularly for the very uncommon attention and kindness that I hourly experience from my numerous friends. I have the best advice that London can afford, and I’m constantly attended by two of the most eminent physicians.
And then she died August 24, 1804, aged 44. She was buried with her husband and actually, their daughter, Sophia died as a young person as well. She’s also buried there at the same church, St. Mary’s Church in Battersea on August 25, 1804. At that church, much, much, much later, like 200 years later, an admirer of Benedict Arnold – for these people are out there and I presume they have not made it this long in this podcast if they wanted to listen to it – a Benedict Arnold admirer donated new stained-glass windows to that church in honour of Benedict Arnold, Peggy, and their daughter Sophia. So, it is stained-glass windows showing images of them as people. In 2004, another Benedict admirer donated a new memorial plaque to replace an earlier one. This is in the basement of the church, the book I read said like, if you go there in the basement near the daycare center, there is a plaque to Benedict Arnold and Peggy Shippen and their daughter Sophia. I forgot to say earlier, but when they were in London, they were seen to be visiting John André’s tomb in Westminster Abbey as well. So, they paid their respects to their cool friend as well.
So, Peggy Shippen, time to get into some scoring stuff. We’re going to score her on the Fredegund Memorial Scandaliciousness Scale as well as we’re going to connect her to Marie Antoinette in ways you might be able to predict for this one, I don’t know. I do think that this story has a bit of Marie Antoinette vibes as well, just sort of like, a young person who’s just sort of, like, partying and likes her female friends and then just kind of gets caught up in this, like, has a horrible husband and is caught up in some wild, international world events.
So, the first category on our scale is Scandiliciousness. I was thinking about this because she was, she was a spy in the American Revolution. Her husband, we’re not scoring Benedict Arnold, thank god, but the people of Philadelphia found her pretty scandalous. Well actually, at the beginning, the Quakers found her scandalous for her tits on dresses and for attending the Mischianza and stuff. But ultimately, she was, for most of her life, she was just, like, a stand by her man, having children, living as best she could, just sort of like, a respectable life. But the scandal of her, like, being a spy, the reaction of people in Philadelphia, it’s… Mmm… Mmmm… I’m going to say for scandalousness, I’m going to give her a 6 because she was a spy who was run out of town for being a spy. And I mean, spy shit, invisible ink, ciphered letters, like, that sounds cool.
For Scheminess, I think she gets a high score for Scheminess, both for her era— Of the various people in this, you know, none of them were good spies but I think she was at least a better spy than Benedict Arnold. But I’m going to say the Scheminess of, like, how she reconciled the finances as a woman in 1801, like, the way that she was really hands-on with all of that. Scheminess, we also often look at, like, the resiliency, how people are able to pivot given life circumstances, and god knows she did that as well. Like, whenever she… She was so loyal to her man, and she kept trying to fix his reputation, and she had strategies for that, and a lot of those strategies were just kind of like using her emotional and social skills and things. I think she gets a pretty high score for Scheminess. I’m going to say, like, an 8 for Scheminess.
Significance, I mean, I’m just going to check my score again but she’s, at this point, if you’re like, why do the numbers keep changing? It’s because the survey is still live as I’m recording this. But yeah, 22% of Americans, only 22% of the 300 people who answered the survey have heard of her. Like, I don’t think she’s super famous. Benedict Arnold, her husband, 87.8% of people have heard of him. Her significance, I think, to me, partially is sort of like emblematic of sort of a wife who… And we haven’t had a lot of stories like this in the podcast. She kind of lived up to the standard of what society expected of a woman to be, it’s just she was in these various, extreme situations because of what her husband was doing. But like, so many women in history were married to men and kind of had to put up with stuff or just, sort of like, within those constraints had to find ways to make themselves happy. And she did, you know, she had her friends and she liked going to parties, she had a nice time.
But Significance, I think it’s pretty low for her, frankly, and that’s the whole thing: well-behaved women don’t make history or whatever, not that she was especially… I guess she was well-behaved for most of her post-marriage life. But it’s just, like, she kind of did what was expected of her, and that’s not necessarily significant, which doesn’t mean the things that she did weren’t worthwhile or weren’t important. It’s just, in the grand scheme of things for Significance, I’m going to say, like, 2, because at least, you know what, there’s other people in this survey that less Americans have heard of. So, she has been heard of by 22.4% of a survey sample of 300 Americans and there are other people less famous.
So, the Sexism Bonus, how much did sexism get in her way? I don’t think that was really an issue she had to face to very much extent. I think she found ways to live within the context she was in. Like, as a young belle, she was just kind of like, “Okay, I’m valued for this and this and this, great. I’m going to use that as currency. I’m going to become the most popular.” Her father, she was well-educated so, you know, her education didn’t suffer because of her gender. She learned about politics and stuff. I think if she had lived in a society where women were able to do more stuff than just, like, constantly be pregnant and raise the children of dirtbag husbands, maybe she would have been able to thrive in a different way. But I think she found a way for herself to do the best she could within the society that she was in. I mean, I don’t know, she was married off when she was 17, but she wanted to be because that’s kind of how she saw a way to sort of improve. It’s not that there’s not sexism there. I just don’t think it affected her very profoundly. So, I’m going to give her a 3 for sexism.
This is going to be a low score. No hate but, you know, we end these episodes with these scores, and this is what it is. Her score is a 19 which gets her in the neighbourhood of the Marys, like Mary, Queen of Scots’s pals, the four women all called Mary. They have a collective score of 18. And I think having Peggy Shippen in that area with a 19 makes sense because these are, kind of, women who were… They did what was expected and wanted of women at this time. And we know their names, but not a lot more about them so, like, they’re on the scale, it’s just, you know, not any higher up than that. I think this is suitable for her.
The other thing we’re doing this season is Nothing But Net, a special new segment to see how do we connect the story to this series, this season’s ultimate heroine, Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution. So, I did mention that Benedict Arnold did run into some people leaving the French Revolution and they also hung out with Marquis de Lafayette. So, I was like, is that going to be her connection? No. Her connection is actually quite direct because she met Queen Charlotte from Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story. They directly knew each other, Queen Charlotte liked her, Queen Charlotte gave her a pension. These two had deals with each other and knew each other. And Queen Charlotte was pen pals with Marie Antoinette. So, that’s a pretty direct connection actually. So, Peggy to Queen Charlotte, Queen Charlotte to Marie Antoinette is two degrees of separation is how close Peggy Shippen was from Marie Antoinette.
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So, that is the end of the saga of Peggy Shippen, and that makes, if you count Peggy, which is short for Margaret, and if you count her along with Peg Plunkett, the various Marguerites and Margarets, that makes nine over the course of this podcast that has been around since 2019. We’ve done, I don’t even know how many people 100 something… nine Margarets! You might think, is that the most? I was thinking, is that the most of any name we’ve had? I feel like it was in the Women Trapped in Towers season. Just, seemingly, person after person just happened to be named Margaret. But in fact, Mary or Marie is the most populous name with 10. Margaret is creeping up there. But I will say, I counted the four Marys, Mary, Queen of Scots’s ladies in waiting, I just counted that as one Mary. So technically, it’s like 13 Marys.
Anyway, this is Vulgar History. As I mentioned at the top of the show, big, exciting news! I’m going on an internationale research trip, but there will be time during that trip to do the first-ever Vulgar History meetups. So, I’m going to be in Edinburgh, Scotland and I’ll be available for meetup on Wednesday, August 21st, and I’m going to be in London, England, on Wednesday, August 28th. So, the details are TBD, but if you want to RSVP for this and get updates about when I figure out where we’re going to meet and what we’re going to do, I mean, it’s probably going to be walking around, looking at some oldy-timey things in some park somewhere in both cities, but go to VulgarHistory.com/Meetup and I’ll put you on the list to know what we’re doing and when and where.
Also, if you’re not in or near those places, but you want to know all the stuff that I’m experiencing during this research trip, which I mean, side note, is my first time leaving Canada in 10 years. 10 years ago, what I did was I just went to the US for a weekend. So, it’s my first time leaving the continent of North America in 15 years. So, it’s a pretty big deal for me personally. I’m going to be seeing so many things that I’ve talked about on the podcast. I am quivering with excitement and I’m going to be sharing a lot of the stuff that I see. You can follow along; I’ll be putting my photos, videos and more at Patreon.com/AnnFosterWriter, which is free, like, I’m going to be putting all these things up for free. So, you can follow me there. It’ll be sort of like a little blog. That’s why I’m putting it there just so I can have sort of, like, long, essay-type things. And then also be putting some stuff in my Instagram Stories, which is @VulgarHistoryPod on Instagram.
Yeah, but speaking of both, I mean, you can follow me on Instagram @VulgarHistoryPod. And you can also follow me on Patreon. So Patreon.com/AnnFosterWriter. If you follow me just for free, like, you can just go there and just sign up and say like, “I want to be a free follower,” whatever. Then you see the stuff that I post there, like my trip pictures and videos and things. And then if you bump it up a notch, if you pledge at least $1 or more a month, and I think it’s $1 us or potentially $1 Canadian. So, I think in the EU, that might be, like, 50 cents. I don’t know… I haven’t been on my trip yet, I don’t know conversions. But for $1 a month, you can get early, ad-free access to all episodes of Vulgar History. And you can listen to those, you don’t have to listen to them in Patreon, you can just attach that to your regular where you listen to your podcast, Spotify or Apple podcasts or whatever. If you pledge $5 or more a month, you get access to bonus episodes of Vulgarpiece Theatre where I talk about costume dramas with Allison Epstein and Lana Wood Johnson, as well as episodes of The After Show. I take it to The After Show with some of the guests when we just have so much to talk about, and also, So This Asshole about some gross men from history.
I also want to mention the jewellery brand I will be wearing on my trip, Common Era Jewellery, which is our brand partner. So, this is a beautiful small business, woman-owned business, and they make beautiful jewellery inspired by women from history/mythology, like Roman mythology, Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology, and also history. The designs are all about women; they have a whole collection that’s called “The Difficult Women Collection,” which talks about women who are historically kind of misinterpreted, misunderstood, like, we would call them “Tits out women.” Torie from Common Era calls them “Difficult women.” We’re talking about like Agrippina, Anne Boleyn is there, Cleopatra is there. When we’re talking about mythology, Medusa, Hecate, just like, amazing women, badasses to wear around your neck or on your finger because it was also rings. Anyway, Vulgar History listeners always get 15% off all items from Common Era by going to CommonEra.com/Vulgar or using code ‘VULGAR’ at checkout.
If you want to get some Vulgar History merch, like I will be wearing on my trip… I was thinking, when I have the meetups, how will people know who is me when we’re having the meetup? And I’m like, oh, wear a Vulgar History T-shirt, and then people know that’s me. So, I’m planning to wear the Peg Plunkett T-shirt. That’s how you’ll know it’s me. Anyway, you can get your own Vulgar History merch, go to VulgarHistory.com/Store. That takes you to our TeePublic page, and you can get the beautiful designs that I have commissioned and paid artists to draw. I just want to let you know they’re not done by AI or anything, they’re like real human people who I’ve paid, who are talented artists, members of the Tits Out Brigade. You can get all those gorgeous designs on a T-shirt, on a magnet, on a sticker, on a pin, on a phone case, like, all different things, wherever you want to flaunt your extremely niche interest in this podcast. And yeah, VulgarHistory.com/Store takes you to the TeePublic store, which is great if you’re in the US. If you’re outside the US, I recommend the Redbubble store. All the same stuff is there, and the same deal; find the design you like, put it on whatever thing you want. That’s VulgarHistory.Redbubble.com.
You can get in touch with me using the form on the website, which is VulgarHistory.com. I think it’s just like “Contact me” or something. Honestly, if you’re from Philadelphia, if Peggy Shippen is your girl, like let me know, I don’t know, like what do you know about Peggy Shippen when you grow up there? Or honestly, if you’re from England, did you know about John André and his, like, tomb? And if you’re from New Brunswick, are you just excited when I talked about you for the first time ever? Anyway, you can get in touch with me about whatever at VulgarHistory.com. Just go to the little contact form or send me a DM on Instagram where I am @VulgarHistoryPod.
Next week, we’re continuing our American history sojourn. We’re going to have a lot more guest appearances by the main characters of the musical Hamilton as we take a look at another person who was, at one point, President of the United States and some of the women who he was terrible to. So, that’s what’s coming up next week. Until next time, keep your pants on and your tits out.
Vulgar History is hosted, written, and researched by Ann Foster, that’s me! The editor is Cristina Lumague. Theme music is by the Severn Duo. The Vulgar History show image is by Deborah Wong. Transcripts are written by Aveline Malek. Find transcripts of recent episodes at VulgarHistory.com.
Transcribed by Aveline Malek at TheWordary.com
References:
Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-era Women and the Radical Men They Married, by Nancy Rubin Stuart
Sign up for updates on the Vulgar History meet-ups in Edinburgh and London!
Get 15% off all the gorgeous jewellery and accessories at common.era.com/vulgar or go to commonera.com and use code VULGAR at checkout
Get Vulgar History merch at vulgarhistory.com/store (best for US shipping) and vulgarhistory.redbubble.com (better for international shipping)
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