Historical Hamilton rants!

The Historical Churchgelica Relationship

!!!This blog isn't meant to offend anyone at all!!!
I've just seen many people on this Amino, who believe this was a healthy relationship and frankly, although people are allowed to have their opinions, it pisses me off a bit that many of them haven't even really researched Churchgelica. So here we are.

TW: Death. Anyone who feels unsafe or uncomfortable surrounding this subject, please turn away from this blog, for your own interest.

Churchgelica has gone through a lot of phases - from being disliked in the musical to loved in the fandom, there isn't quite any historical ship like this one.

A majority of people, even the ones who don't ship it, believe Church had a healthy relationship with Angelica, and that they were in love. Well, today, I'll be explaining why I disagree to the highest degree.

So, without further ado:

John Church went to America under the name John Carter, avoiding punishment as he believed he had killed someone in a duel (which later turned out to be fake, but I'll discuss that later.)

He pretended to be a rich 20s entrepreneur, rather than being the quite a bit older man. John posed as a businessman, when he really was extorting both sides of the war for money.

Angelica Schuyler (soon to be Schuyler-Church) met her future husband in 1776. Her father advised her to stay away from the man, as he pretty much knew about who John “Carter” really was.

But, as Angelica was a rebellious and intelligent young woman, she was curious in such a mysterious man as John.

Two or three weeks later, Church asks Angelica to get married to him - and being the young and reckless woman she was, the oldest schuyler sister agrees.

Needless to say, her father was not pleased - but he wasn't the only one. It can be read in letters from her Mother and Father, Catherine and Philip to their sons (Angelica's brothers) that really no one in the family approved of their relationship.

And as two young lovers would, they eloped without her parents’ permission, starting

Only a month or so later, she finds out the truth about who he really is - rather than being the charming and rich man she thought he was, he was a manipulative gambling addict, who fled from England because of murder accusations.

In fact, he had such a huge gambling problem, he ended up even spending up to 20k USD in ONE evening, not to mention he was highly addicted to alcohol as well.

In addition to that, there are letters from parliamentary Lords discussing that Church had “eyes for the governess” who looked after their children, and he'd been speculated to have been pursuing her.

When Church found out he hadn't killed a person, merely wounding him, he decided to travel back to England, although his wife, Angelica didn't seem too thrilled to travel.

She wrote to Eliza and their brothers constantly before the trip, that she wanted to stay in America, rather than moving away, but it wasn't like Church listened or cared about what she had to say, since they went anyways.

And it doesn't matter if she ended up hating or loving England (which is still debatable), what matters is that Angelica Schuyler-Church insisted they don't go, and John Church went with her anyways.

Of course, we could forgive his gambling and alcohol addiction - that's what it is, after all, an addiction, as well as the possible cheating and insisting Angelica move, that was simply circumstantial, but there is one thing that I refuse to ever let go of, as it was cruel and blatantly terrible.

You see, John Church would leave his wife quite often, without any notice, and while Angelica was usually sick.

Don't get me wrong - forgiveness is fatal, and it'd be fine if he'd leave her once or twice, for a month or something, although leaving a notice of where you've gone is not hard. What is unforgivable, is that he did it constantly and for long periods of time, up to her not knowing where her husband is for 2 years.

Had just leaving not been enough, he decided to flee again, during multiple of his children’s births, and what I imagine to be even worse, during the deaths of two of them.

In the late 1780s Angelica fell quite sick for a long period of time, and instead of helping his physically weak wife, he left for a few months without any notice. There's even a letter from our favourite Alexander Hamilton, where he asks for how Angelica is feeling, as Eliza had said she's sick.

Since this (quite friendly) letter had no response, he came out with another one, this time requesting it more firmly that he goes to his sick wife. (he didn't listen then either)

At the time when Angelica was sick, she had to juggle taking care of herself and her kids - a task that proved to be difficult as she wasn't able to completely take care of their infant child, Richard Hamilton Church (named after Alex).

Now, let's all have a moment for silence for Richard, who passed away of malnourishment, because John Church decided he wanted to leave his wife and kids for months, rather than avoiding this catastrophic end of a man's life.

Furthermore, John was informed of the passing of his own child, but what did he do? Did he realise his mistakes and return to his wife and family, begging for forgiveness? No, this monster of a man decided to continue staying who-knows-where for about two more months before returning, or even just writing a letter.

And that's not talking about the emotional toll it put on Angelica herself. As stated before, Angie was the one who failed to care for her infant child (John's fault, but whatever). Now, imagine yourself in this situation. Your child died because you couldn't care for him, you'd think it's your fault wouldn't you, no matter what your husband had done?

That’s how Angelica Schuyler felt.

It is understandable why many people like this ship - and I'm not saying you should stop. Ship this ship all you want, make modern versions of John Church, make them go on cute dates and sing the other to sleep.

But, for the love of God, don't ignore what happened. Don't ignore how Angelica was constantly hurt from the relationship, trapped in it without the option of divorce.

You don't need to add this to your fanfics or fanart by any means, but just, don't say their relationship was perfect historically.