Celebrating marriage between women in the early modern period
Date: 03 June 2026
Author:
Dr Holly MarsdenThe legalisation of same-sex marriage in England, Wales and Scotland in 2014, and in Northern Ireland in 2020, was a monumental development for LGBTQIA+ rights in Britain. However, throughout history same-sex couples have shown their love and commitment using the language of marriage.
This Pride month, Curator Dr Holly Marsden highlights the ways women from the 1600s to the 1800s celebrated their relationships. The following four case studies show how they expressed being a spouse in all sorts of ways.
Mary II and Frances Apsley
When she was a teenage princess, Queen Mary II wrote love letters to Lady Frances Apsley using the language of marriage and romantic literature to express her feelings. Their intimate and devoted correspondence began when Mary was growing up in the English court and continued after her move to the Netherlands to marry the future William III in 1677.
Mary and Frances gave each other nicknames based on popular plays. Mary called herself 'Chlorin' after a character in John Fletcher’s ‘The Faithful Shepherdess’ and called Frances ‘Aurelia’ after Philip Massinger’s ‘The Maid of Honour’.
In her letters Mary calls Frances her husband and calls herself Frances’s wife. When she became pregnant by her husband, William III, Mary even referred to her own child as a ‘bastard’ in a letter to Frances, perhaps implying that the bond between the two women was the true marriage.
After Mary’s move to the Netherlands, she wrote to Frances that ‘I do love you as much as I always did’, and expressed relief that Frances had ‘writ to me with the same freedom we have ever used’. Their mutual fondness sometimes took on a more overtly sensual tone. In one letter, Mary implored Frances: ‘if you do not come to me some time to day [sic] dear husband that I may have my belly full of discours with you I shall take it very ile [ill]’, signing off as ‘your faithful wife mary chlorin.'
Image: Mary II when Princess of Orange by Sir Peter Lely. © Royal Collection Enterprises Ltd 2026 | Royal Collection Trust.
if you do not come to me some time to day [sic] dear husband that I may have my belly full of discours with you I shall take it very ile [ill]
Mary II, writing to Frances Apsley
Mary and Frances also used secret codes to communicate, making sure the carrier of their letters could not have access to either their innermost thoughts and feelings, or the court gossip they shared. They sometimes referred to people they talked about only by their initials, for example.
These letters demonstrate how women could express their love and desire for each other through the language and concepts of heterosexual marriage. Mary’s teenage romance did not last, and their communication fizzled out before Mary moved back to England to become Queen in 1688, where she reigned until 1694, predominantly from Kensington Palace.
Their relationship fits with language often used for relationships between women in the late seventeenth century. The term ‘female husband’ was used in accounts of cohabitating women who presented themselves as man and wife. Marriages between women were also depicted in literature, sometimes as a heterosexual trick where two women would pretend to marry; or sometimes to portray relationships had by intersex people. Showing that some clichés never change, the older characters in these plays often find these relationships shocking, as they are seen as devaluing the practice of marriage.
Image: Arabella Hunt by John Smith after Sir Godfrey Kneller. © National Portrait Gallery, London.
Arabella Hunt and James Howard
London court records describe a legal marriage that occurred not so long after Mary began writing to Frances. In 1680, Arabella Hunt, an 18-year-old court singer and friend of the young Mary, married James Howard in a church in Marylebone. The court records describe a tribunal to annul the marriage shortly after.
They show that James was also known as Amy Poulter and was determined by the court to be ‘a perfect woman in all her parts’. James had wooed Arabella sometimes wearing masculine clothes and sometimes wearing feminine clothes. Arabella even refers to James as being ‘of a double gender’, suggesting that she saw James as intersex.
They married while James was already married to a man named Arthur Poulter, meaning this marriage committed bigamy, as well as being illegal as two women could not marry. Although the couple lived together as Arabella and James, man and wife, after six months Arabella asked for the annulment. In the court records, James describes that presenting themself as male was a prank. This may have been an attempt to present a defence to protect themself from the scrutiny of the courts.
There are many reasons James may have chosen to live as a man at this time. It may have been a reflection of their sense of who they were, or it may have allowed them to marry a woman they loved when this was illegal. In fact, both possibilities may be true. This interesting articulation of trans possibility demonstrates the importance of a marriage ceremony to show the commitment of a non-heterosexual couple, even though it ended in annulment.
Anne Lister and Anne Walker
Looking beyond the walls of the palaces we can find other examples of women using the language and framework of marriage to describe their relationships.
In 1815, over one hundred years after Arabella and James’s marriage, Anne Lister met Anne Walker near her estate at Shibden Hall, West Yorkshire. Born in 1791, Anne Lister was the eldest daughter of a captain turned farmer, though their family were cloth merchants. She inherited her 600-year-old family seat, Shibden Hall, from her uncle. After moving there in 1815, Anne Lister managed the estate from 1826. It came with vast lands, meaning she was independently wealthy. Although Anne Lister never visited the English courts, she often visited the French royal family in Paris, including Louis XVIII and Charles X. Anne Walker was born in 1803, also becoming a landowner after the death of her parents.
Anne and Anne began a romantic relationship in 1832, which is extensively documented in Anne Lister’s diary. Much of her diary was written in secret codes, as Mary II and Frances Apsley had done. These codes were cracked by the hard work of one of Anne Lister’s descendants, John Lister, and his friend, Arthur Burrell, who began the operation. Many dedicated researchers have completed decoding and transcribing the diaries, including Muriel Green, Vivien Ingham, Olive Anderson, Helena Whitbread, and Jill Liddington.
The couple lived together at Shibden Hall, and on 29 January 1821, Anne Lister noted that ‘I love and only love the fairer sex’. To celebrate their love and commitment to one another, Anne and Anne took communion together on Easter Sunday 1834 in Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate. The ritual may have had the significance of a marriage to them.
The couple bequeathed their properties to one another, with clauses that if the other should marry, they would be disinherited as they should have 'then departed this life’. This clause was designed to protecteach woman and their estates due to women’s limited property rights at the time. The lifetime inheritance meant that upon Lister’s death, Walker could live in Shibden Hall.
Image: Portrait of Anne Lister attributed to Joshua Horner circa 1830. Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council (Public domain).
Image: Ladies of Llangollen. Wellcome Collection (Public domain).
Sisters in love, a love allowed to climb.
William Wordsworth's dedication to Eleanor and Sarah.
Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby
In 1822 Anne Lister visited another important example of two women living together, the renowned ‘Ladies of Llangollen’, Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby. Anne's diary described how she would only like to live in Wales if she could stay at their house. Like Mary II and Anne Lister, Eleanor and Sarah kept diaries and engaged in frequent correspondence.
Aristocratic Irish women, Eleanor and Sarah met in 1768 and dreamed of escaping their family seats to live together in Wales. They first attempted to leave Ireland on 30 March 1778 with Sarah’s dog, Frisk, dressed in masculine clothing. However, their families discovered their plan and found them, bringing them both back home. They eventually succumbed to their wishes, and Eleanor and Sarah caught the boat to Wales in May, before quickly sending for Sarah’s servant, Mary Caryll, who lived and worked with them from then on.
Their house, Plas Newydd, which they designed to be a haven for intellectuals and passers-by, was visited by many famous writers, including William Wordsworth. Plas Newydd was also visited by Princess Charlotte and the Duke of Wellington! The Duke was a longtime family friend through his grandmother, Anne Hill-Trevor, Lady Dungannon. Eleanor, Sarah, and Mary all lived on a modest income from relatives, as well as, as it has been suggested, a small pension from Princess Charlotte. In 1829, the Duke of Wellington, by this point Prime Minister and Constable of the Tower of London, gave Sarah a £200 per year English Civil List pension after Eleanor’s death.
All three of the women were buried in the same plot together, marked by joint monument. Many people speculated (and still do) over the nature of their relationship, which was lovingly celebrated by Wordsworth in a sonnet dedicated to Eleanor and Sarah, which reads: ‘Sisters in love, a love allowed to climb’. Through their creation of a home and domestic bond like marriage, Eleanor and Sarah showed their commitment to each other.
Same-sex marriage today
These four stories have survived in the historical record, partly because they are connected to royalty and the aristocracy, or in legal records, so we can tell them today. However, examples of all forms of marriage between women and people on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum have existed throughout the globe, across time.
The legalisation of same-sex marriage in the UK was a step forward towards equality for all and showed how LGBTQIA+ people have always wanted to express their love and commitment to each other. Today same-sex marriages can be celebrated at sites cared for by Historic Royal Palaces. In fact, the first commercial wedding at the Tower of London organised by our Events team in 2020 was a same-sex ceremony!
May we continue to celebrate all expressions of love and commitment this Pride month.