Let's Learn About... #01: Sarah Churchill

Charlotte
Welcome to a new episode of 'Let's Learn About'; the show where you learn things that you didn't realise you wanted to learn.

Ellie
Until right now where you clicked on this podcast and went "Ooo, we're gonna learn something new today!"

Charlotte
So, in today's first episode, Ellie's gonna take control, and I think I'll just pass it over to her now. What are you going to teach me today?

Ellie
Today I am going to teach you, and our gentle viewers out there, all about Sarah Churchill.

Charlotte
Can you explain who she is?

Ellie
Well, apart from being Rachel Weisz in 'The Favourite'...

Charlotte
Love a bit of context!

Ellie
... she is a very important person in history, mainly in regards to our very own Queen Anne back in the day. She is currently one of my favourite people to learn about at the moment, because she was pretty much a badass in an age where women were not expected to be badasses and...

Charlotte
Best kind of woman.

Ellie
Yes! And I think more people need to know about her because she really was a woman of her own time basically; pushing through and becoming possibly someone that no one expected her to be or, in cases, no one wanted her to be, but she was anyway! So she was...

Charlotte
...intriguing!

Ellie
She was a woman... she was a woman who I now have great respect for. So anyways, our story begins, in the best teacherly way that I know how, on the fifth...

Charlotte
...I'm just imagining you opening up a massive leather book, like a fairy tale book.

Charlotte
If someone wants to give me that for Christmas, I will love you forever. Like the old school Disney style "Once Upon a Time...."

Charlotte
"In the beginning..."

Ellie
Once upon a time, we start with the birth of Sarah Jennings; they reckon somewhere around St. Alban's, Hertfordshire which, for some reason they knew the exact date out of throughout all of history, but they don't know the precise location within our very tiny island as to where she was born. I didn't get that.

Charlotte
Don't you just love, like, old fashioned cenuses?

Ellie
Yes!

Charlotte
How... how clear they were?

Ellie
"Yeah, it's somewhere around here, we're not sure". So her father was a very important MP at the time and had the favour of the current Duke of York - James, soon to be King James II - that little relationship will come in very important. So through their friendship at the age of 13, Sarah ended up in the court of the Duke of York (soon to be King James II) to be the... they call it the Maid of Honour, and I got really confused by that and was like "what? Wait? Was she part of the wedding party? I don't know". But apparently the Maid of Honour is like, the junior lady-in-waiting of James II's wife, Mary of Modena. So that's how she ended up in court circles in the first place; age 13, in the court of King James II. About two years later, in 1675, Sarah became friends with Princess Anne, who is Olivia Coleman.

Charlotte
This is great for me because I still haven't seen it, so it's given me some context.

Ellie
So this is what I like; I like it when you have a movie to reference because it's like "just picture this person but younger". So Rachel... very young Rachel Weisz, age 15 at this point, has just become friends with young Olivia Coleman. So the Jennings family within the span of about a decade and a half have already gone up in social circles, and when I mean friends, I mean they had pet names for each other. So, Sarah was known as Mrs. Freeman and Anne was known as Mrs. Morley. Don't ask me how these nicknames came about, as all good nicknames... but yeah, they were the pet names for each other. So that's how close their friendship was, they were pretty close at the age of 15. However at the same time, she also met her future husband. Now this is the bit about history that I don't like because her future husband, a man named John Churchill, was 25 at the time of their meeting and apparently fell madly in love with Sarah. Bit creepy!

Charlotte
Yeah. It's just how it was.

Ellie
Yeah, I know, product of the time, but - urgh - I hate that fact! But anyway...

Charlotte
It's when it was like, completely normal for like, a 30 year old to be like, "oooo that 12 year old is very attractive".

Ellie
Oh I know, and you think about it nowadays it's like "bleurgh!" But...

Charlotte
...yeah, straight to prison for you!

Ellie
Yeah, pretty much. But at the time it was an accepted concept so...

Charlotte
Yeah, it was a thing.

Ellie
It was a thing. We'll put that to one side. Now the problem is, even though he fell madly in love with her, both their respective families did not think the match was very good; John was a bit shit with money.

Charlotte
Oh, no.

Ellie
John was not very good with his with his finances, he was in fair amount of financial debt, and he also had another lady interested in him at the time - a woman named Catherine Sedley, who for some reason was interested in John even though she was already the mistress of James II! I'm sorry if you're already with the King, why do you want this man? I mean, he must have been good looking or something because...

Charlotte
...yeah, he's not even rich!

Ellie
No, he's poor as hell, and she's with the King! So I don't know what was going through her head.

Charlotte
A bit of... a bit of a step down there.

Ellie
I know, a little bit. But anyway he wanted... even though he fell in love with Sarah he wanted to get with Catherine, because Catherine was rich and also the mistress of the King, and his family though that if he got the Catherine their money problems would be sorted. At the same time Sarah's family didn't want her to get with him because he was poor as dirt, and they were trying to build up their social standing as they had done pretty successfully. John, thinking he could have the best of both worlds try to make Sarah his mistress...

Charlotte
All right.

Ellie
...and apparently there are like, letters between the two of them that are... that historians currently have. They're still alive and still intact, and what I think is hilarious is the fact that John was like, "hey Sarah, wanna be my mistress?" And Sarah basically was like, "no thanks I'm alright!" Yeah, she pretty much turned round and went "I'm either your wife or I'm nothing at all, so don't even try it" and... ah, so you can see where my love for Sarah begins.

Charlotte
It's coming out already, yeah.

Ellie
Yeah she's 15, bearing in mind dear... dear viewers, this is a 15 year old woman standing up to a man 10 years her senior and going "I don't think so mate". Love her a lot. So after about two years of this weird love triangle, the Jennings family - Sarah's family - has a little bit of a hard time; her brother dies, poor brother Ralph, he dies, and that leaves Sarah and her sister Frances as the only remaining heirs to the Jennings family, or certainly that branch of the Jennings family because Jennings family's quite big. But in terms of their father, the prominent MP, friend of James II, they're his only two kids. They become co-heirs of the family estate - the family estates in Hertfordshire and Kent, because why have one estate when you can have two?

Charlotte
Exactly.

Ellie
So that suddenly makes her pretty rich, which I'm sure was entirely no factor at all in the fact that John suddenly decides "actually I don't want to Miss Catherine Sedley anymore. I want Sarah. Yeah, I want there to be the only woman".

Charlotte
It's funny that!

Ellie
Yeah, not because she's rich! Not at all! That played in no part towards his sudden wanting for her and only her. Yeah. But their families are still pretty like "ehhh, not sure about this match" so as all good teenager/nearly 30 year old couples do, they sneak off and get married and secret.

Charlotte
Right.

Ellie
And I mean, so secret to the fact that no one's entirely sure as to when the marriage actually happened.

Charlotte
Wow!

Ellie
Like they proper snuck off! So they reckon it's somewhere between the end of 1677 and 1678; they get married, they only tell a couple of people, they don't officially announce anything until she gets pregnant. And then they're a bit like "ah well, we probably should say something now... Hey everyone we got married! And we're having a kid, so..."

Charlotte
"Suprise!"

Ellie
"Surprise!!" I suppose you can't really hide that in the, sort of, 17th century - the corset starts, sort of, getting a lump in it. It's like "this is not just a food baby, everyone".

Charlotte
Yeah.

Ellie
So at this point, Sarah is approximately 18/19, not so secretly married, and the hits kind of keep on rolling; she loses her first child in infancy.

Charlotte
right.

Ellie
Quite sad, happened a lot back in the 17th century.

Charlotte
A common thing.

Ellie
A common thing. And then on top of all that, stuff starts going down in England; between England and Scotland in terms of... as with history, people decide someone that is the King doesn't want to... they don't want to be the King anymore, assassination happen, yada yada yada. James' brother Charles... there's like, a coup against him, and there's like, a group of people that want to assassinate him.

Charlotte
Right.

Ellie
So James, his brother - who's still the Duke of York at this time - decides he doesn't want to be around England just in case he gets killed. He doesn't fancy that, so he tootles off to Scotland to hide out for a bit while these assassins either do or don't kill Charles. John and Sarah, still sort of carrying on Sarah's father's legacy of being quite good friends with James, tootle off to Scotland with him. So they've had a bit of a bad time, so they decided for a jolly up with the King's brother up to Scotland for a few years. When all the assassination stuff sort of blows over eventually, John and Sarah - Mr. Mrs. Churchill - clearly saw an opportunity to continue climbing the good old social ladder.

Charlotte
Yep.

Ellie
And because they sacrificed their potential lives to stay with the King's brother, the King duly rewards them with titles; John becomes Baron Churchill and then of course Sarah becomes Lady Churchill. And with that new title, gets appointed Princess Anne's Lady of the Bedchamber, which is like, the Lady in Waiting; so not only is she good friends with Anne, she is now her head honcho in her... in the hierarchy of servants for the royal family....

Charlotte
Yeah.

Ellie
...Princess Anne's personal attendant, so their already quite close relationship you can see gets quite a lot closer when you have to wipe your best friends bum! I'm not lying, that is an actual... that is an actual role for a Lady in Waiting.

Charlotte
Not particularly a job I'd want. I mean, no offence to my best friend, but I'm sure she'd think the same.

Ellie
Yeah, no, I mean, friendships and the the amount of personal intimacy back in the 17th century was something to be desired. It does make you think, though - do jobs like that still happen for the monarchy nowadays? Is there someone that wipes the Queen's bum or can she do it herself? You have to wonder like...?

Charlotte
We need to find out. I'm now just getting really gross pictures in my head of, like, Phillp... someone's... someone's job being like... to be Philip's bathroom attendant.

Charlotte
I mean, being any a Philip's attendents would probably be quite awkward at the best of times. Can you imagine the jokes he'd make?

Charlotte
Oh, no!

Ellie
If there's anyone out there who is part of the Royal household, could you answer the question for us please? We're quite interested to know now!

Charlotte
Come on an episode, tell us all about it!

Ellie
Do a special episode dedicated to jobs within the Royal household and what you do and don't have to do with their personal private lives. Oh, it's already been quite an exciting life for Sarah, and it does continue to be a bit of a roller coaster. Nothing is simple with this woman. So after being loyal to James for so long, the Churchill's - knowing that allegiances can be shifted depending on who comes into power and who doesn't - unfortunately decide to switch sides from being James's bezzie mates to being friends with William of Orange when he decides to take over the rulership of England. So... which is a shame but I suppose if you want to keep your head you kind of have to sometimes switch allegiances. James decides to exile himself to... France I think - I can't remember, I'm pretty sure it's France - and William of Orange takes over as King of England. Now because William of Orange is now King of England, he's kind of decided that he doesn't want any of James's family to have the opportunity to take over his newly claimed throne. So...

Charlotte
Right.

Ellie
...he tries to capture Anne and keep her under his lock and key, so he can manipulate her.

Charlotte
Right.

Ellie
Sarah decides this is not such a good plan so actually engineers Anne's escape from the Royal residency, which was currently at Whitehall at the time - not Buckingham Palace, they lived at Whitehall. So she sneaks Anne out in the dead of night, engineers this whole escape, and sneaks her from London up to Nottingham...

Charlotte
Right?

Ellie
...all under the cover of darkness - I wish this part was in the movie I would have loved to have seen it - sneaks Anne off up to Nottingham and basically places them both in the protection of William of Orange's closest friends. Which I thought was quite sensible really, because if you're best friends with a potential future monarch you kind of want to keep her alive. Although there are some historians that kind of say that Sarah did it more for herself...

Charlotte
Right.

Ellie
...which I can see, but at the same time you... she also did it for her friend. She also did it for her friend. And out of that, she had her husband get rewarded with more titles, and they become Count and Countess of Malborough. So again, it's working in their favour.

Charlotte
Yeah.

Ellie
However, because it was quite well known to the Orange's that they had such strong allegiances with James, and she has very... already at this point, it's quite obvious that she has a big influence over Anne politically. She's seen as a bit of a threat, and William decides to try and get rid of Sarah by trying to persuade Anne to remove her from her service. And Anne's response is pretty much, like "no she's my mate! Piss right off!"

Charlotte
I like this voice!

Ellie
Oh I know, you can just imagine her, right? You know, this... this princess and she's like "no she's my mate, I'm not getting rid of her! Go away!" I'm so sorry I tend to do voices.

Charlotte
No, it adds to the immersion. I love it.

Ellie
So yeah... William tries to get rid of Sarah, Anne tells him to piss off, and ergo there is a pretty big rift now between Anne and William of Orange and his Misses - the new King and Queen of England. Sarah takes this opportunity to basically make her influence over Anne even stronger; managing to gain her financial freedom from the Orange's, and going up against the Queen - when she also continues to try and get Sarah evicted from the Royal lodgings - but that only results in, when Sarah does get evicted, Anne went with her.

Charlotte
Right.

Ellie
Which is, kind of, not what the Orange's wanted. So not only has she has now gained financial freedom over the Orange's, but also personal freedom. She is no longer under their clutches. So it's all going to be tits up for the Orange's, they're not doing very well. But anytime they try to go up against Sarah, Anne decides to go with her, so you can see how heavy this hold is that she's got on her - even to the point that they have to escape to the Duke and Duchess's house in Somerset from Nottingham. Then Sarah's husband gets imprisoned in the Tower of London.

Charlotte
Oh God!

Ellie
So Sarah is now on her own, not in her home, away from her husband, her kid's died, and pretty much the only support she's got now is Anne. And their friendship just gets stronger and stronger and stronger, to the point where, in 1694, William of Orange's wife - Queen Mary - dies of smallpox, and because she was pretty much the main instigator in trying to get Sarah away from Anne, William then decides to reinstate Anne back into the royal household. She becomes his heir, because Queen Mary's basically put so much effort into trying to destroy Sarah's life that she hasn't given William any heirs. So William decides to make Anne his heir, brings Anne back into the royal household, and in doing so brings Sarah back with her and also gets Sarah's husband out of prison. So she's back home, she's in brand new lodgings, she's got all her titles back, and she is now the best friend of the future Queen of England.

Charlotte
Yeah!

Ellie
So at this point, we can agree that Sarah was quite the politically savvy person. Again 17th century women aren't supposed to have this sort of influential power at the time. But for some.. somehow she has managed to gain this massive political standing by her, sort of, late 20s/early 30s. It's quite incredible.

Charlotte
Yeah, you would think this kind of thing would all happen over like, 30 years or something. But...

Ellie
...no, literally it happens between the ages of 15 and sort of, like, late 20s, so about a decade, decade and a half? It's quite incredible, and for two women as well.

Charlotte
And I think I'm busy!

Ellie
And you are busy! You never seem to stop! But yeah, no, she was just... she was incredible. She was... she was influential politically. She was influential financially, because when the Churchill's got offered a dukedom - so they've gone from Lord, to Count, to Duke of Marlborough - becoming a Duke is quite a financial responsibility because at that point, you're expected to like hold parties and have events. Now this is the guy who was very, very bad with money, so Sarah doesn't see this as quite a good opportunity to take because that's just gonna make him skint.

Charlotte
Mm hmm.

Ellie
So somehow she manages to persuade the Royal household to give her more money - so about an extra £5000 a year. And not only that, but she then persuades government to give them an extra £2000!

Charlotte
Jeez, how much is that now?

Ellie
I have no clue.

Charlotte
I'm going to find a quick inflation calculator, I'm... I'm kind of intrigued to see how much that'll be. So what, like £7000 altogether?

Ellie
I'm assuming that's £7000 in their time. So that was the 1700's... Maths with Charlotte and Ellie!

Charlotte
It's like 1.5 million today.

Ellie
Okay wow! She somehow manages to swing an extra million pounds of income a year just to accept this Dukedom. So they're like "we're gonna give you a brand new title" so and she was like "No you're not, you're gonna give me the new title and an extra million pounds a year, thank you very much!" Which they agreed to?! So they now become the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough and also, because she is now a Duchess, her title within the Royal household goes up as well. So she becomes Mistress of the Robes, which is like the highest ranking office in Royal court for a woman.

Charlotte
Sounds like something from Hogwarts.

Ellie
Yeah, it does. You can imagine her sort of walking around in like, a cape. She's Professor McGonagall. "Open the gates!" So she becomes Mistress of the Robe, she becomes Groom of the Stool which is, basically, that is the official title for butt wiping. She becomes the first of only two women to become Keeper of the Privy Purse, which is the Royal households finances. So basically, she had hold of Anne's money and how she spent it; one of only two women throughout history that has had that role. And then also became the only woman ever to become the Ranger of Windsor Great Park, so the person that oversees the upkeep of Winter Park. So this woman just continues to push boundaries in what women at the time were capable of doing. Like, glass ceiling? What glass ceiling? She shattered it entirely! And basically, through all that, becomes the second most powerful woman in all of England apart from the Queen herself. So at this point, Anne has become queen....

Charlotte
What a duo!

Ellie
I know right? I can see why they made a movie about them. This woman is incredible - she went from the daughter of an MP, to the second most powerful woman in all of England, and basically becomes the Queen's business manager! She basically is the one in charge of who gets to look upon the Queen, what the Queen spends her money on, where she gets to go, when she wipes her butt... she is in charge. She is one now telling Anne what to do, when to do it, and when to poop.

Charlotte
Oh god!

Ellie
Now, I would like to say their friendship was still as strong as ever at this point. However, things to take a downward turn for the two of them because, along with the power, Anne still wanted Sarah to be her best mate. So to be there to comfort her when she needs it, you know, what friends are supposed to do, right? Sarah is not the kind and compassionate woman that Anne wants to be - Sarah is very straightforward, she is forthright in her opinions, and flattery is not in her wheelhouse.

Charlotte
Okay.

Ellie
So if the Queen wants to be flattered, or told she looks pretty that day, Sarah is not the one to do it. And Anne - being Queen - gets a bit pissed off with this because she is the queen; if she wants to be told she looks pretty that day, she kind of expects the people in her service to do that, and Sarah's like "nah mate, you look like a badger". And I mean, I can see why she was like that, because at that point she was a woman in a man's world; she had to be forthright and she had to be straightforward in order to survive politically in an environment that was not catered to having her there. She pushed her way in and basically all the men surrounding her thought she was bossy and thought she was interfering, including her best mate - who was the Earl of Godolphin - really like Sarah as a person, but considered her such a bossy and interfering woman that he refused like, a really high political post, because he didn't want to be anywhere near Sarah in a policital environment! That's how bad people thought she was!

Charlotte
I mean, I feel like it's honestly not much different today. Like, when you have powerful women in a men's... in a traditional men's space, I feel like women still have to be really, kind of... you can't... you've got to be assertive. You can't just kind of be quiet because you will still be pushed down. I genuinely feel like it's not that different. Obviously, the treatment is a lot better, I'm not saying the treatment of women is the same as it was in the 1700s, but it's not far off.

Ellie
I know right? It's funny how in... I mean, we've come so far socially, but at the same time you then look back at stuff like this happening and it's like, no, it's exactly the same in many respects.

Charlotte
It's not that crazy.

Ellie
If a man's assertive, he's the boss. If a woman's assertive, she's bossy, or a bitch, and this is exactly what's happening to Sarah at this point. She has earned her right to be there, and just the people around her are so flummoxed by the fact that a woman has turned up in this environment, they are basically doing everything to push her out. And like even Anne, like a fellow woman, and okay in many respects, because she's the queen, she kind of expects to be the head honcho because she's the queen. But it's her best mate! And after everything Sarah has done for her!

Charlotte
Smuggling herr across the country.

Ellie
Yeah, to save her from the clutches of a man who invaded their country and took over a family basically. I mean, these qualities that she once admired in her best friend, she now finds annoying. Okay, Anne kind of makes the most of her new power, in the fact that she now no longer spends a lot of time at court, and she's basically doing things outside of court... yeah, they spent a long long time together just the two of them in many respects, and this must have been quite a sudden sort of like, "oh my best mate, who has been there for me forever, is no longer here when I need her the most". So yes, I can see why...

Charlotte
You can kind of see both sides.

Ellie
Yeah, it's difficult. Like friendships change and all that, but it's quite sad to see such a powerful friendship just slowly crumble.

Charlotte
That's what you get with power.

Ellie
With great power comes great responsibility. And then my sympathy for Sarah kind of disappears around 1703; she kind of does something that even in my eyes I was a bit like, "oh, for goodness sakes Sarah! I love you woman, but..." She doesn't... she's human, she's flawed, she maybe doesn't do things in a way that you would think would be the correct way to do things. Basically, in 1703 Sarah's son dies of smallpox and Sarah basically becomes a recluse. This is not her first child that's died, but this is her son which, you know, in a... in a country at the time, which is so inherent on having a son in order to pass on the family name and stuff like that. She becomes a recluse and she basically closes herself off from society, from the Queen, refuses to answer the Queens letters, basically shuts Anne out. However, when Anne's husband dies five years later, Sarah just magically reappears at court, out of the blue, and basically arrives uninvited to Kensington Palace, finds Anne inconsolable, sobbing over the body of her dead husband. Now what do you think, as her best mate, she she should have done at this point? Because I can guarantee you it's not what she does.

Charlotte
I mean, should be sympathetic surely?

Ellie
You'd think, right?

Charlotte
Yeah?

Ellie
She basically... Sarah turns around, tells Anne that she needs to leave Kensington Palace to get away right the body of her dead husband, and scolds Anne for grieving over her dead husband! And I'm just sitting there like, "what?! That is compl..."

Charlotte
Like, she's just lost her husband and now you're gonna make her lose her friend too?

Ellie
Pretty much. Sarah just completely does not understand why Anne is upset over the death of her husband.

Charlotte
Even though she's just lost her son so she knows exactly how it feels.

Ellie
Yep, pretty much, pretty much.

Charlotte
Right. Like I mean, I know grief does weird things, but come on!

Ellie
Yes, so you can see what my sympathies for Sarah kind of take a downhill turn at this point. And it gets worse. If anyone has watched The Favourite out there, they know that during this time when Sarah is away from court, Anne makes a new friend. Anne makes a friend called Abigail, who is Sarah's cousin. Bit of a distant cousin cuz the Jennings family was massive like I said earlier, but Anne makes a new best friend in Abigail, because Abigail is kind and compassionate, and tell's the Queen that she's pretty even though she's not necessarily pretty, and doesn't engage her in like, politics or anything like that, isn't really assertive. She's basically the ideal companion; just follows the Queen around, tells her she looks nice. You can understand why the Queen suddenly much prefers Abigail's company over Sarah's at this point. And Sarah gets quite jealous because someone's taking her best mate. It's quite teenage high school stuff that's happening at this point; Sarah's jealous of Abigail because Abigail stealing her best mate, and the Queen's annoyed with Sarah because Sarah is not being a very good friend. So they have some very, very big fights over the next few years, including Sarah very, very badly stepping out of line. Like I know she's got a lot of power at this point, but when she tells the queen to shut up...

Charlotte
Well, I just... why does that remind me of that bit in the Princess Diaries? She's just like, "shut up!"

Ellie
"I beg your pardon? Shut up?!"

Charlotte
"You do not tell me to shut up!"

Ellie
Oh, if this had been the Tudors Sarah would not have lived! Luckily Anne's not quite like Henry or any of that lot, she's not like, "off with her head!" or anything like that, but that's pretty much the straw that breaks the camel's back at this point and Anne sends... sends Sarah away. She's like "I've had enough of this", they have a big set to, she tells Sarah to leave court. So Sarah does that really sensible thing where Anne basically gave her like a week to give... to get out of the palace, and Sarah's like, "I've not been fired, I quit!" and leave the very next day. So her and John do that thing that couples do when they, sort of, hit their midlife crisis and they pack their bags and they go travelling around Europe for a few years, only returning back to England the day, and I mean the afternoon, that Anne dies! The only time they return to England is after Anne dies. Just a really sad way to end their friendship; they have a massive fight and... yeah, Sarah doesn't even come back for the funeral. She doesn't go to the funeral. She doesn't... they never see each other again.

Charlotte
Oh god!

Ellie
I mean, things end quite happily for Sarah in the end apart from, you know, losing her best mate and stuff like that. But I mean Sarah, even after her husband dies, she becomes like one of the biggest landowners in the UK. Again, still 17th century. By the time she dies - and she dies at the age of 84, which is pretty impressive for the time - she survives her father, her mother, her brother, her best mate, her husband, several of her children, and by the time she dies she owns, like, 27 different estates throughout the UK. She's built, or overseen the building of like, what we know today as Blenheim Palace. She helped build that! And yeah, and she is... it's amazing! She starts from the daughter of this MP and she dies having outlived pretty much everyone else she knows, being one of the wealthiest women in the UK, reached a political standing that, at the time, no woman had ever reached - titles that no woman had ever reached within the royal household. And not only that, is also the one who then... cuz from her lineage comes like: Winston Churchill, as in Prime Minister Winston Churchill, he's a direct descendant.

Charlotte
I was... I was actually wondering if there was a connection there.

Ellie
There is a direct dissension, yes. But not only, not only to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, but also to Lady Diana Spencer, as in the Princess of Wales, is directly a descendant of... I think it's Sarah's granddaughter started the Spencer line? Like her granddaughter was also Lady Diana Spencer, and then brought about the line which included the Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales that we've known in our lifetime.

Charlotte
That's so weird.

Ellie
So there ends the story of Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, warrior woman, pathfinder, political juggernought, a fascinating woman!

Charlotte
And she's... she's one of these names that no one has really heard of, unless you actually go searching for stuff or if you actually know the history, if you've learnt the history, but just as a day to day name. She's done that many things and you just don't know her name.

Ellie
No like, before.... literally the only reason I started researching her was because of The Favourite! Literally I watched the movie, read a bit about her, and became utterly fascinated by her. And you do wonder...

Charlotte
And there's so many people like that as well.

Ellie
I know, and hopefully we will get to know a few more of them through this podcast!

Charlotte
We will! While I think of it as well, another podcast you should go and check out if you like stories like this is - I think we might have mentioned it in the first episode, but I can't remember - that's the 'Wonder Women' podcast with Carrie Hope...

Ellie
Fletcher and Celinde Schoenmaker.

Charlotte
Go and listen to that, because I don't think we've updated it for a while, but they did a few episodes and that's quite similar - where they talk about amazing woman through history. There's pirates and there's... there's all sorts. So yeah, go listen to that as a quick podcast recommendation.

Ellie
So hopefully we'll be able to touch on a few more of them as the podcast progresses, and if there is any women in history that you think we should research a bit more on and talk about in this podcast, let us know! Because I'd be fascinated to learn more about different women as well.

Charlotte
Yeah, if you go to our website - which is learnaboutpod.com - you can contact us right there and there'll be a form where you can submit your ideas and stuff. So if you do know of any amazing people that you think people should hear about, or even people that you'd love to learn more about, then just get in touch with us and let us know and we will definitely cover that in a future episode. Because...

Ellie
...or alternatively, you can also find us on our social media handles, Twitter and Instagram - @learnaboutpod for both of them - and let us know what you thought about this episode! Do you like the topics that we're starting to discuss? Is, as you said, if there are any recommendations for what you want us to talk about, give us a tag, let us know, we'll be fascinated to have a read for you. So I hope you had fun learning about Sarah Churchill. I had fun researching about her!

Charlotte
What an amazing woman.

Ellie
She was indeed. Thank you very much Char, thank you got letting me talk about her.

Charlotte
Yeah, we'll see you next week for another mystery topic.

Ellie
We shall decide what it is.... soon. Thank you very much, everyone.

Charlotte
Bye!

Ellie
Bye!