[realitykeeper]

Ulster Unionists commemorate the battle of the Boyne but was their beloved Dutch King Billy gay? This clip from the excellent Dutch movie Admiral would suggest he was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oNwFEl8w20 and several other clips from the same movie indictate likewise.

Next time the Unionists commemorate the Battle of the Boyne, maybe they might like to invite a lot of gay people to celebrate the life of King Billy with them. Maybe they could get a baker to make the gay cake. Now doesn`t that sound sweet?

Here is the full movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRoKBEu5eyc

[is_that_so]

Is there anything that's not a YouTube video that might suggest this? Otherwise this just looks like clickbait.

[Peregrinus]

Rumours circulated in his own time that he had homosexual favourites; these rumours were assiduously propagated by his Jacobite opponents, but were taken seriously by his supporters as well - seriously enough to warn him about the unusual degree of favour which he showed to a number of young, handsome men, some of whom he brought with him from the Netherlands, and to whom he granted English titles and court positions. (Their descendants still enjoy English titles today.)

William had no children with his wife, whom he married for dynastic reasons when she was just 15 years old (and he was 27). He only had one known mistress, which by monarchical standards of the time meant he was regarded as practically celibate. His intense friendships with younger men are not in dispute, but historians disagree about how much veracity there might be in allegations that these relationships were actively sexual.

[Ipso]

Odds are he wouldn’t have been the only one in the village.

[Fuaranach]

What's the world coming to. Next they'll also be claiming the Roman Catholic Church supported him...

[realitykeeper]

Originally Posted by Fuaranach

What's the world coming to. Next they'll also be claiming the Roman Catholic Church supported him...

How was the Holy Catholic Church to know?

[realitykeeper]

Originally Posted by is_that_so

Is there anything that's not a YouTube video that might suggest this? Otherwise this just looks like clickbait.

No need, Peregrinous agrees. And, this additional info is compliments of joeguevera: https://www.amnesty.org.uk/blogs/bel...ion-gay-rights

[Peregrinus]

Originally Posted by realitykeeper

How was the Holy Catholic Church to know?

Oh, darling, everybody knew.

[Ash.J.Williams]

The battle of the boyne was in fact a tiff between two gay lovers

[Peregrinus]

Originally Posted by Ash.J.Williams

The battle of the boyne was in fact a tiff between two gay lovers

Lovely idea, but no. While James VI and I was of questionable sexual disposition, James VII and II, who was Willam's adversary at the Boyne, seems to have been entirely heterosexual; indeed, actively so to an almost embarrassing degree.

[joeguevara]

Certainly not new. Many articles on it going back years. Here is one from amnesty in 2008.

https://www.amnesty.org.uk/blogs/bel...ion-gay-rights

[realitykeeper]

Originally Posted by Peregrinus

Oh, darling, everybody knew.

But sweetheart, surely you are not suggesting there were no clossets in the 17th century.

[realitykeeper]

Originally Posted by Peregrinus

James VII and II, who was Willam's adversary at the Boyne, seems to have been entirely heterosexual; indeed, actively so to an almost embarrassing degree.

That must have been quite a feat given that a monogamy was practically akin to celibacy for monarchs of that time.

[Peregrinus]

Originally Posted by realitykeeper

Surely you are not suggesting there were no clossets in the 17th century sweetheart.

There were many, ya hot thing ya. But a life lived as publicly as that of the King of England could not be closeted. Remember, this is a man for whom getting out of bed in and getting dressed was a state occasion to which courtiers were invited every morning. Virtually everthing he did, even the most mundane of things, was observed and commented on by numerous witnesses.

We have the questions we have about his relationships with younger men precisely because everybody knew about them, and gossiped about them; they were played out in public. And the gossip wasn't just at Hampton Court - there was a regular lively correspondence between people in William's court in London and in the pretender's court in France in which all the news and gossip was exchanged, and from France it spread everywhere. Jacobites in Rome and Jacobites in Paris were writing to one another about William's supposed taste for young men. Of course the papal court knew about the rumours; how could they not? Their suport for William was not an expression of moral approval of his character or habits, but a power-play - Wiliam was at odds with Louis XIV of France and so was the papacy; therefore the papacy supported William of Orange.

[Peregrinus]

Originally Posted by realitykeeper

That must have been quite a feat given that a monogamy was practically akin to celibacy for monarchs of that time.

James was unuusual in that he married "beneath him" (he married a commoner), and he married for love, against the opposition of his family (and also of hers). His marriage to Ann Hyde lasted 11 years, endin with her death from breast cancer. It produced 8 children, of whom only 2 survived to adulthood. By all accounts the marriage was a close one; the couple were affectionate, and were very good friends as well as being husband and wife, something not taken for granted at the time. Ann became a Catholic early on in their marriage, and it is generally taken to be her example and her influence which led James to convert some years later. James was fond of his children and his role as a father which, again, was not something to be taken for granted at that time, and in that class.

And yet James had a string of infatuations with other women, and a string of mistresses, and was a famous letch and ogler at court. He had at least 7 illegitimate children by two of his mistresses (although some of these were born after Ann's death). Ann was deeply hurt by all this, but James seems to have seen no contradiction in his commitment to his marriage and his dalliances elsewhere.