This Week in YouTube February 16
19:17 Share

There are some things you wouldn't mind being stuck with, like a large unexpected inheritance. An always-on-the-verge-of-death phone that has to be plugged in just right so it charges is not one of those things. Switch to Verizon and we'll pay off your old phone. Up to $800 via prepaid MasterCard so you can get a new one. Just trade in any phone from our top brands on any unlimited plan.

Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. The message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird. Okay, one judgment.

Anyway, give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch.

Hey friends, welcome to the Renaissance English History Podcast. This is the weekly highlight reel of videos that I have put out on YouTube. So in case you don't know, you can go over to YouTube and watch all my videos. The channel is History and Coffee, and you can just search for my name as well, Heather Tesco, History and Coffee, and you will get it. And you can subscribe there. Thank you to the many people who already subscribe. And then what I've started doing is

weekly highlight reels of some of the videos that have gone out on YouTube that would be of interest to the podcast listeners as well. So thanks for listening. And you can also, like I said, go over and join me on YouTube history and coffee and search for Heather. And there I am. So let's get right into it.

Today we are going to talk about the Wizard Earl. There was a Wizard Earl and we're going to talk about him. Henry Percy, the 9th Earl of Northumberland. Last week we talked about his wife, Dorothy, Dorothy Davereaux, Dorothy Percy. And I mentioned him being the Wizard Earl and there were some comments saying, oh, let's talk about the Wizard Earl. All right, let's get into it and talk about, I just like saying it, the Wizard Earl. It's just fun to say. All right.

Henry Percy, he was the ninth Earl of Northumberland. He's not a name that pops up very often in the big moments of Tudor and Stuart history, but I think he probably should be because he's fascinating. Henry was one of the wealthiest aristocrats of his time. He was an early champion of science and alchemy. His life is full of contrast. He was a man with one foot in the world of noble privilege.

and another in the realm of intellectual exploration. He also had a connection to the gunpowder plot, which landed him in the tower, and his story becomes even more intriguing. So Henry was born April 1564 at Tynemouth Castle in Northumberland to one of England's most prestigious families. His father was the 8th Earl of Northumberland. He was a Protestant, and Henry followed suit, though the Percys, of course, had very deep Catholic roots.

and that would come back to haunt him later. Even as a young man, he was drawn to intellectual pursuits. He studied under the vicar of Egremont, learning not only religion, but also developing an early interest in science.

In 1585, his father died. He inherited the earldom. He gained significant wealth and influence. In 1594, he married Dorothy Devereaux, who was the sister of Robert Devereaux, the second Earl of Essex. That's the person we talked about last week. There was Penelope Devereaux, Robert Devereaux, who became Elizabeth's favorite before he then tried to rebel against her. And Dorothy, who

And this marriage, of course, connected him to another wealthy family, but their marriage was far from happy. The couple eventually separated, but the marriage did produce a male heir, Algernon Percy, who was very active on the parliamentarian side in the Civil War a couple of decades later. So the Percy lineage continued. Henry's fascination with the natural world earned him the nickname the Wizard Earl.

He built one of England's largest private libraries at Scion House, filled it with works on alchemy, astronomy, and mathematics. His home became a meeting place for some of the era's greatest thinkers. Among them was Thomas Harriot, a brilliant scientist who worked as a tutor and a collaborator with Walter Raleigh, who also did lots of experiments.

Harriet made groundbreaking observations of the moon using a telescope months before Galileo did, and even sketched sunspots. Henry also surrounded himself with a circle of intellectuals and explorers, including John Dee, the renowned astrologer and mathematician. These connections gave rise to rumors about the so-called School of Night, a group of thinkers allegedly dabbling in the esoteric,

and pushing the boundaries of science and philosophy. Now, this group was probably not particularly formalized. People who think similar things like to get together and talk about them. So I don't know that there was like a formal group. But Henry did have a reputation as a forward-thinking patron of science, and that was well-earned.

Alchemy in particular was a passion for Henry, though it wasn't just about turning lead into gold. For him and many of his contemporaries, alchemy was a way to explore the mysteries of nature and the universe. This intellectual curiosity set Henry apart from many of his peers who viewed science with suspicion or outright disdain.

Henry's intellectual pursuits were only one part of his story. His connection to the gunpowder plot in 1605 plunged him into a far darker chapter. At the center of this drama was Henry's cousin, Sir Thomas Percy, who was one of the key conspirators in the plan to blow up Parliament.

Sir Thomas had been in Henry's employee for years, first as a rent collector at Scion House and then later as one of the king's bodyguards, a position that Henry had secured for him without requiring the standard oath of loyalty. This link to Sir Thomas was enough to make Henry a suspect. It didn't help that another of his servants, Dudley Carlton,

had leased a building next to the House of Lords, the very spot the plotters used to access the cellars. To make matters worse, Thomas Harriot, who of course was very close to Henry, had reportedly cast a horoscope for King James, leading some to speculate that Henry dabbled in more than just science.

Of course, it was illegal to cast a horoscope for the monarch. That was what had gotten John Dee imprisoned under the reign of Mary I because you couldn't speculate about the death of the monarch. And John Dee had done that about Mary and Princess Elizabeth. That got him thrown into the tower. So the idea was that Thomas Harriot was doing this too. They were thinking about when the king might die, etc., etc.,

So Sir Thomas Percy was killed during the government's raid on the conspirators, and he took many secrets to his grave. For Henry, this was both a blessing and a curse. While there was no concrete evidence tying him directly to the plot, his association with Thomas Percy and his outspoken critiques of James I made him an easy scapegoat. Following the discovery of the gunpowder plot...

Henry Percy was arrested and imprisoned in the tower. Although the evidence was circumstantial, his connections, his failure to enforce the oath of loyalty were enough to warrant a punishment. The government likely suspected that even if Henry wasn't directly involved, he had at least turned a blind eye to the conspirators' activities.

henry's imprisonment was harsh but far from unbearable he had immense wealth so he could pay to live in relative comfort he even installed a covered bowling alley within the tower's walls he occupied the martin tower a space he transformed into a hub of intellectual activity

his time in the tower brought him into regular contact with walter raleigh who had also been imprisoned there and he was imprisoned in what was called the garden tower because he made a garden out of it so together they would discuss scientific theories and smoke tobacco and continue their intellectual pursuits

Thomas Harriot remained a close collaborator during this time, visiting Henry in the tower and sharing his groundbreaking astronomical observations. Harriot's work with telescopes and his maps of the moon continued to push the boundaries of scientific discovery, and Henry took a lot of pride in the fact that he was supporting these efforts. While he was in prison, Henry maintained his patronage of a number of scholars and scientists, so he continued to support this learning.

Despite his relatively privileged conditions, his imprisonment came with a hefty fine, £30,000. This staggering sum was eventually reduced to £11,000, but the financial burden combined with the loss of his offices and status marked a significant decline in his political influence.

after seventeen years in the tower he was finally released in sixteen twenty one as part of a broader amnesty for political prisoners by this time his reputation had largely been rehabilitated the evidence linking him to the gunpowder plot had always been tenuous at best and most of his contemporaries viewed his punishment as unjust and vindictive

In his later years, he retired to his estates and continued his scholarly pursuits, and that is about when he started earning the nickname of the Wizard Earl, which showed his curiosity, his forward-thinking approach to the mysteries of the natural world. He passed away on November 5th, 1632, which is ironically the anniversary of the gunpowder plot. So who knows whether he was really guilty of being part of the gunpowder plot or not. There's a lot of evidence that he knew the people who were

So I don't know, he may not have been the villain, but he certainly hung out with people who wanted to kill the king and blow up Parliament and kill everybody and say, ah, it would have been a pretty bad scene. He paid the price for being caught in the crosswinds of history. So there you go. A little bit about Henry Percy, the Wizard Earl.

Oh, right. Margaret, are you building a teleporter? No.

No. Yes. SAP Concur helps your business move forward faster. Learn more at concur.com.

Long gone are the days of waiting to be seen in a doctor's office only to have that awkward conversation with your healthcare provider. WISP gives you access to sexual and reproductive healthcare from the comfort of your home. Get treatment for BV, yeast infections, UTIs, and much more delivered directly to your home or ready for pickup at your local pharmacy in less than three hours. The best part? WISP is discreet, convenient, and you don't need medical insurance to receive care or prescription medication.

Visit us today at hellowisp.com. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. The message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird. Okay, one judgment.

Anyway, give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 for three-month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. We're going to talk about white teeth.

Because there is a belief that goes around a lot, and I have also fallen victim to it, that the Tudors and Elizabethans wanted black teeth because it showed how wealthy they were because they could afford sugar.

So this is so prevalent. I have talked about it in my episodes. I did an episode on sugar in Tudor England, and I brought up this idea of black teeth and how that was a style. Like, it's just kind of one of those things that's taken as a truth. But then someone wrote to me, it was about a year ago, and they asked me for some primary sources on that because everything that they could find with primary sources was about keeping your teeth white. And I was like, huh.

Hmm, where did I get all of that information? So I started going back and looking through my notes. And wouldn't you know, all of my notes are from secondary sources. There weren't any primary sources.

And I thought, well, there you go, Heather. That's a bit of a mix up. So I wrote back to him and I said, you know, like now that I'm looking, I can't find anything. I can't find any primary sources on teeth blackening. But there are an awful lot of primary sources on teeth whitening, which makes me think that there is a bit of a myth.

around Elizabethans wanting black teeth. Some of the earliest recipe books from this time are specifically have ideas on how to whiten your teeth. So we're going to talk about that today. So the desire to have white teeth

actually goes back all the way back to Roman times and people have been trying to figure out ways to keep their teeth white for thousands of years. It was a sign like it is for us of attractiveness, of health, but achieving that look was no small feat in an era without fluoride or electric toothbrushes or dental floss. Oral hygiene has been an important concern for centuries and we are going to talk today about

about some of the surprisingly inventive ways that people came up with to care for their teeth. So let's start with the myth of the black teeth. It's often said that during the late 16th, 17th century, people deliberately blackened their teeth to imitate the upper classes who could afford sugar.

which was, of course, a luxury. It is true that sugar caused tooth decay among the wealthy. Elizabeth I was famous for having teeth needing to be pulled all the time. Ambassadors toward the end of her life talked about how they couldn't even hear her necessarily make out her words because she was missing so many teeth. It was hard for her to chew. It was just like a whole thing. But black teeth were never a fashion statement.

White teeth were highly prized, which reflected the broader beauty ideals of the time. When you look at portraits, for example, of the time, nobody ever has black teeth. Nobody is ever missing teeth on purpose in their portraits. These beauty standards have very deep roots. By the 14th century, poets like Petchart were describing their idealized woman with coral lips, golden hair and white teeth.

By the late 15th century, Italian cosmetics included powders made from ground coral and rock alum to achieve that dazzling white smile. So you would use rock alum and brush your teeth with that.

These efforts, of course, were not without risks. For example, Renaissance barbers who often performed the dental work used aggressive methods to whiten teeth. It just kind of makes me cringe even talking about it. They filed the tooth surface to roughen it up, and then they added nitric acid to bleach the enamel. The result was the teeth looked whiter for a while, but the damage to the enamel left them vulnerable to rapid decay. Now, one thing that's kind of interesting is

Before sugar became affordable and common for people, people's diets were pretty darn healthy. There wasn't any processed food.

There wasn't that mostly people ate in season, fresh produce. There wasn't high fructose corn syrup. There wasn't a lot of stuff that damages your teeth. So people in pre-modern, pre-sugar world actually had very healthy teeth. The dental records, they have pretty good teeth, much more than we might assume. And people did spend some time thinking about how to clean their teeth. So medieval health texts like the Trochela

and Gilbertus Anglicus' Compendium of Medicine are full of advice for keeping teeth clean and your breath fresh. Let's talk about a couple of their methods. One simple recipe recommended chewing on a paste made from pepper and salt. It may sound strange, but apparently the abrasiveness of the salt helped to clean the teeth, and the pepper likely gave a sinus-clearing bonus.

Gilbertus advised chewing the mixture for a while and then swallowing it, an all-in-one dental and medicinal treatment.

Another method involved walnut shells. According to the trochula, you would clean the green rind from the shells, rub your teeth with them three times a day. Afterwards, you'd rinse your mouth with warm wine, optionally mixed with salt again. For those concerned about the wine stains, another trochula recipe added an extra step, swishing and wiping the teeth with a clean white cloth.

Finally, you could chew on some fennel or some parsley to freshen your breath. Are you going on crusade and worried about keeping your teeth clean and your breath fresh? Well, the physicians of MidFi have a solution for you. Our practical, TSA-approved, travel-friendly sage and powder balls. And you can make them yourself at home, too. Add this to your Pinterest board. Bake sage leaves mixed with salt until the whole thing is burned.

and then form them into nice portable balls. Easy to pack and easy to get through security. Once you're at your destination, whether it's Istanbul, Jerusalem, or just over the sea in Calais, just crush them into a powder and scrub your teeth vigorously with them. Sage and salt powder balls, combining convenience with effectiveness, from the physicians of Midfai since 1322. The number one choice for travelers from merchants to crusaders.

Oh, but I'm wealthy and extravagant, and I'd like a fancy toothpaste that reflects my status. Well, we have an answer for you also from the Trochilla. Just mix cinnamon, cloves, spikenard, frankincense, and date pits, and if you have it, a crab foot. Grind it all into a fine powder, and then rub your teeth with it. So it will leave my breath smelling exotic and wealthy, and leave no doubt about my social standing. Indeed, this is dental care as a statement of affluence and refinement.

You guys, I'm having too much fun. I have too much fun. There's other recipes that took on a more abrasive approach, like incorporating ingredients like pumice and burnt white marble and even red tiles into powder. These materials might have been effective at removing surface stains, but they likely caused damage to the enamel over time. Despite the risks, the pursuit of clean white teeth was a priority, and people relied on trial and error experimentation to refine their methods.

Many of these dental recipes and techniques were pioneered by women who experimented with ingredients sourced from their own gardens, pantries, and local apothecaries. At a time when the sciences were dominated by men, women's work in beauty and hygiene represented a fascinating blend of technical knowledge and creativity. Cosmetics, including dental care products, were often dismissed by male writers as frivolous or superficial. Yet women's expertise in this area was undeniable.

Texts like Thomas Jameson's Artificial Embellishments from the Mid-17th Century acknowledges the danger of certain beauty products, warning women to avoid ingredients like mercury and Spanish white bismuth because of their harmful effects like tooth decay and wrinkling. Despite such risks, women's contribution to early cosmetology laid the groundwork for many current beauty and hygiene practices. I'm a poor peasant. What can I do to keep my teeth clean?

oh don't worry peasant i've got a low-cost and effective way for you to maintain oral hygiene just rub your teeth with a cloth after every meal that will remove food particles and prevent what we medieval writers call corrupt matter from remaining between your teeth

Herbs also played an essential role in daily dental care. Chewing on parsley or fennel helped freshen the breath and likely had mild antibacterial properties. These habits not only kept the mouth clean, but also contributed to overall health and well-being. Wine rinses were another popular method. After rubbing your teeth clean, you could swish your mouth with a good quality wine, which acted as an astringent and antibacterial agent.

you would then wipe your teeth afterwards with a clean cloth which ensured that no stains were still there the ingenuity of medieval and tudor dental care is full of surprises from the luxurious spice filled recipes of the wealthy to the portable sage and salt powder balls for travelers

These methods reflect a creative approach to hygiene that still resonates with us today. While some practices, like using pumice or red tiles, might make modern dentists cringe, they reveal the length to which people went to achieve a bright, healthy smile. So what do you think? Would you try any of these? Would you try pumice on your teeth? What about those sage and powder balls? I'm actually really down to try those. That sounds really interesting. I do like sage.

Thanks so much for listening to this week's YouTube highlights. Remember, you can go over and subscribe. History and Coffee, Heather Tesco, you will find me there. And we'll be back again next week with more highlights from what went out on YouTube throughout the week. Thanks so much. Have a great week.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are now boarding Group A. Please have your boarding passes ready to scan. If your phone is cracked, old, or was chewed up by your Chihuahua travel companion, please refrain from holding up the line. And instead, simply go to Verizon and trade in any phone in any condition from one of their top brands for the new Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus with Galaxy AI on Unlimited Ultimate and a watch or tab. Also on them. Service plan required for watch or tab. Trade in and additional terms apply. See Verizon.com for details.

Running an online business is hard enough without the stress and time consumption of managing hosting. Whether managing one WordPress site or dozens, Kinsta's managed solutions offer speed, enterprise-grade security, and an intuitive dashboard. With 24-7, 365 human-only expert support, get peace of mind that your sites stay online, secure, and performing their best.

Start today and get your first month free with migrations handled for you. Learn more at kinsta.com slash podcast. That's K-I-N-S-T-A dot com slash podcast.