The Peace of Christmas Eve

 

British delegate Lord Gambier shaking hands with American leader John Quincy Adams as they formalize the Treaty of Ghent peace pact

The Treaty of Ghent, also known as the Peace of Christmas Eve, was the pact signed in the city of Ghent, Belgium (chosen because Belgium was a neutral country) that officially ended hostilities between the fledgling United States of America and the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

Peace talks started in Ghent in August of 1814. Chief negotiator for the Americans was future president John Quincy Adams, and his British counterpart was a man named Baron Gambier.

Britain may well have sent its “B team” to these negotiations; top British diplomats like Foreign Secretary Viscount Castlereagh and later, the Duke of Wellington, went to Austria to attend the Congress of Vienna, which was taking place at the same time.

So many wars, so many peace pacts to hammer out!

The Treaty of Ghent was approved by Parliament and signed into law by the Prince Regent right before the end of the year, on December 30, 1814. However, the treaty didn’t go into full effect until it was ratified by the U.S. Senate a couple of months later, on February 17, 1815.

How the war started

The War of 1812 was actually several years in the making. Tensions between Great Britain and the United States had been simmering ever since the end of the American Revolutionary War. The Treaty of Paris ended that war in 1783, but rather than diminishing American resentment against the British crown, those feelings grew over the following years.

However, there were a couple of immediate causes that sparked the War of 1812. One was the Royal Navy blockade, intended to hurt Napoleon and the French economy but which also affected American trade with Europe.

Depiction of an impressment gang, 1780

The other was the Royal Navy’s habit of “impressment” – taking American sailors off their ships and forcing them to serve on British warships.

To counter heavy battle losses with Napoleon’s forces, British naval officers supplemented their ranks with these involuntary American conscripts. The Royal Navy reasoned that “once a British citizen always a British citizen” and indeed, it’s possible that some of the American sailors were born before the Revolutionary War and the forming of the new nation. The British officers also found deserters from their own ranks aboard American ships, which only encouraged them to keep up the practice.

In any event, when Congress declared war in 1812 it wasn’t exactly a unanimous decision – it was the narrowest vote on any declaration of war in American history (70 to 39 in the House; 19 to 13 in the Senate).

Strategy

What followed that vote was a truly scattered, wide-ranging war, probably the most disorganized and disaster-prone in U.S. history. It ranged from the provinces of Canada to the Gulf Coast in Louisiana, and from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. Native Americans fought on both sides, helping both the British and the American forces.

The United States did enter the war with a strategy of sorts, no matter how harebrained that strategy looks in retrospect. The idea was to conquer Canada, and then either hold the entire country for ransom, using it as leverage to get concessions from the British or failing that, to keep Canada as a consolation prize.

Understandably, the Canadians weren’t too thrilled with this plan. And when the war was over, many Canadians felt that they were the true victors since they had successfully prevented a U.S. takeover of their country.

Burning of Washington, D.C.

Madison in 1817, during her tenure as First Lady.

While peace negotiations were being conducted in Ghent, the British were actively involved in four different invasions in America. The most notorious one was the British attempt to capture Baltimore. Along the way they decided to march on Washington, D.C. and burn the city down – most notably the Capitol, along with other government buildings, including the 3,000-volume Library of Congress and the White House.

At the White House, First Lady Dolley Madison and her staff fled the oncoming troops in such a hurry that they didn’t even have time to clear the dinner table, on which a fine meal had been laid out. The British soldiers apparently enjoyed the food and drink before burning down the house. Talk about adding insult to injury!

Results of the war

Historians have more or less concluded that there were no conclusive winners in the War of 1812. No territory was gained on either side, and the borders of both the U.S. and Great Britain in North America went back to what they were before the war started.

Some argue that Great Britain actually won. Britain made no concessions on the maritime issues, such as the blockade or impressment, that had sparked the war. It didn’t give up any of its North American territories and kept its Canadian colonies and Western forts. The war also put a stop to America’s annoying repeated attempts to invade Canada.

And to top things off, the Royal Navy didn’t stop impressing American sailors until after the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815.

The war did have a few benefits for the United States, however. The Treaty of Ghent mandate that the countries involved in the war would return to the status quo antebellum – their pre-war borders – was actually a big win for the U.S., which didn’t have to make any territorial concessions to Great Britain as a condition of the peace.

In this way, the Treaty of Ghent actually recognized U.S. sovereignty, giving the new country the respect from Great Britain that had been lacking. For this reason, the War of 1812 is sometimes described as “the second War of Independence.”

The U.S.S. Chesapeake, the ship the mortally wounded Capt. James Lawrence implored his men not to give up. The ship was captured by the British in June 1813.

Lasting cultural impacts

The war may have been short, but it did have a lasting impact on American culture. We gained a national anthem, the Star-Spangled Banner, which started out as a poem written by Francis Scott Key after he witnessed the British shelling of Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore in September of 1814.

In that battle, the British sailed a fleet of 19 ships into Baltimore Harbor, defended by Fort McHenry, and sent about 5,000 soldiers overland to take the city. After a couple of days of fierce fighting and heavy shelling, the Americans won and the U.S. flag still flew over the fort.

Ironically, the American national anthem based on Key’s poem was set to the tune of a popular British song, written by Englishman John Stafford Smith. It’s Smith that Americans can thank for how difficult this song is to sing, as we try to warble through its daunting range of just over an octave and a half.

Also, two expressions from the War of 1812 permanently entered the American lexicon: “war hawks” (referring to the Congressmen who were pro-war) and a catchphrase that’s still heard today: “Don’t give up the ship.”

A Lasting Peace

Following the Treaty of Ghent, the United States has enjoyed an enduring peace with its northern neighbor, Canada. In the early 20th century, three memorials celebrating this peace were built:

  • The Fountain of Time (1920) in Chicago, Illinois
  • The Peace Arch (1921) straddling the border communities of Blaine, Washington and Surrey, British Columbia
  • The Peace Bridge (1927) that connects Fort Erie in Ontario to Buffalo, New York, across the Niagara River at the east end of Lake Erie

Christmas and peace  – what a great combination! Let’s hope it catches on.

~~~

Sources for this post include:

  • 187 Things You Should Know About the War of 1812, by Donald R. Hickey, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, Maryland, 2012
  • World History Series: The War of 1812, by Don Nardo, Lucent Books, Inc., San Diego, California, 2000
  • The Prince of Pleasure and His Regency, by J.B. Priestley, Harper and Row Publishers, New York, 1969

 Photos and images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

How Napoleon ended the Holy Roman Empire

Napoleon and Francis II after the Battle of Austerlitz, painted by Antoine-Jean Gros in 1812

“This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper”

T.S. Eliot wasn’t describing the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire when he wrote those words in his poem, “The Hollow Men.” Nonetheless, his lines are an extremely apt way to describe the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, which ended quietly with a stroke of a pen over 200 years ago in August of 1806.

That’s when the last emperor decided it was his duty to abdicate, letting the dominion under his protection dissolve rather than allow Napoleon to usurp the role of Holy Roman Emperor and everything that came with it.

Emperor Charlemagne, by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528)

The end of the empire was no surprise. By the summer of 1806, the end of the Holy Roman Empire had become inevitable.

Napoleon’s victory over Russia and Austria at the Battle of Austerlitz in December of 1805, and his formation of the Confederation of the Rhine the following July (after he convinced 16 German princes to renounce their allegiance to the Holy Roman Empire and join him) were fatal blows to the ancient regime.

Like the Roman Empire before it, the Holy Roman Empire lasted about a thousand years. It began in 800 AD, when Charlemagne had himself crowned as Holy Roman Emperor  in Rome by Pope Leo III.

During its nearly 1,000-year history, the Holy Roman Empire encompassed a web of territories in central Europe, including much of what is today Germany and Italy. At its height, it was a formidable medieval institution, an unbeatable force that combined the divine power of the pope with the temporal power of a monarch.

However, by the end of the 18th century, the Holy Roman Empire was, as Voltaire cynically remarked, neither holy, nor Roman, nor even an empire. The wars and political convulsions that resulted from the French Revolution weakened the realm, and it became a casualty of Napoleon’s insatiable thirst for conquest.

During the Regency era, some statesmen believed that once Napoleon was defeated the Holy Roman Empire would be restored, perhaps by the Congress of Vienna in 1814-15. It was a reasonable assumption; after all, presiding over the Congress was Francis I of Austria, who before 1806 was Francis II, the last Holy Roman Emperor. (That’s confusing, I know, but that’s politics for you.)

But that hope didn’t materialize when the Congress of Vienna re-drew the map of Europe in an effort to balance the power of its nations. The Holy Roman Empire did not make a comeback. Napoleon’s Confederation of the Rhine didn’t survive, either.

“The Holy Roman Empire including its members” – a double-headed eagle with coats of arms of its individual states, watercolor over woodcut print in paper by Jost de Negker, circa 1510

What did emerge from the deliberations was a new Germany made up of 39 states, with land from the two great powers of the day, Austria and Prussia, as well as many smaller kingdoms, including Bavaria, Saxony, and Hanover.

With that action, the Congress of Vienna sowed the seeds of German nationalism, a movement which grew and became a factor in two world wars a century later.

It’s hard for us to imagine today, after so much time has passed, what it must have been like for Europeans in the early 19th century to see the Holy Roman Empire fall apart.

Francis II, the last Holy Roman Emperor

They were no doubt aware that their ancient empire had lost much of its lands and political clout in the wake of Napoleon’s conquests, which had toppled monarchies across the Continent.

Still, the Holy Roman Empire had existed as a governing body for almost 10 centuries, and at least 30 generations had lived and died in its long shadow. In that summer of 1806 many Europeans must have felt that the world as they knew it was coming to an end.

To put it in perspective, the United States of America has been around a mere 247 years, yet I believe most U.S. citizens would feel acutely bereft if they suddenly lost their national identity.

However, an entity like the Holy Roman Empire doesn’t disappear that easily. Even though the empire became defunct, its influence didn’t end in 1806.

During the 19th century, the history and traditions of the Holy Roman Empire gave the fledgling country of Germany a foundation. And in the 20th century, Adolf Hitler was fascinated by the Holy Roman Empire and kept it in mind as he developed his Third Reich, which eventually led to many of the horrors of World War II.

The Imperial Crown

In particular, the Führer’s cruel and twisted ideas concerning a master Aryan race and the need to “purify” the German populace came out of his warped understanding of the mission of the empire’s fabled Teutonic Knights.

And while the Nazis famously looted and plundered a vast array of Europe’s art treasures during the war, one of Hitler’s top priorities was to capture the magnificent crown jewels that once belonged to the empire.

No doubt he dreamt of using them in the future to give added legitimacy to his coronation as the ruler of a gloriously resurrected Holy Roman Empire.

Fortunately, most of the Imperial Crown Jewels were rescued and are now kept in the Imperial Treasury at the Hofburg in Vienna, Austria. I’d like to see these jeweled relics someday; I think they serve as a potent reminder that nothing endures forever, not even a thousand-year-old empire.

In addition, for me the sight of the recovered crown jewels would also reinforce that other fundamental lesson of history — that the past, no matter how dead it may seem, is somehow always with us.

~~

Sources for this post include:

Hitler’s Holy Relics, A True Story of Nazi Plunder and the Race to Recover the Crown Jewels of the Holy Roman Empire, by Sidney D. Kirkpatrick, Simon & Schuster, Ltd, New York, New York, 2010

Heart of Europe, A History of the Holy Roman Empire, by Peter H. Wilson, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2016

The Holy Roman Empire by James Bryce, Wildside Press, Cabin John, Maryland, 2009

~~

Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Napoleon’s last home

Red dot showing the remote location of St. Helena off the coast of Africa.

In my earlier post this week I described Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo and how it led him to St. Helena. After trying to evade the British forces and make his way to United States, Napoleon had to accept his punishment, which included a final sea voyage to his last place of exile.

Sketch of Napoleon onboard the Northumberland, on his way to St. Helena.

The trip down the African coast took about two months, and the ship didn’t reach St. Helena until October 15. According to contemporary accounts, Napoleon grew silent on the deck of the HMS Northumberland when he first spotted his future home.

St. Helena in 1815

At his initial sighting of St. Helena, I don’t think Napoleon was struck dumb with admiration. I imagine his heart sank when he saw the island’s forbidding cliffs rising out of the ocean.

On the globe, St. Helena looks like an isolated speck in the middle of the vast South Atlantic Ocean. It’s basically a rock, 1,200 miles west of Angola on the African continent, and 2,500 miles east of Rio de Janeiro.

It is a volcanic island, 47 square miles in area, attached to the ocean floor with only the tip visible above sea level. St. Helena’s nearest neighbor is Ascension Island, another volcanic island and British possession, about 800 miles northwest of St. Helena.

And on the uninhabited Ascension Island, as yet another precaution, a garrison of British soldiers was stationed, under the command of Sir Edward Nicolls of the Royal Marines.

During his stay on St. Helena, Napoleon was guarded by 3,000 troops, and four ships constantly patrolled the coastline to prevent any escape attempts. The man in charge of the famous prisoner, Sir Hudson Lowe, was a harsh and ruthless jailor. Napoleon was not going to escape on his watch.

Death of the emperor

Longwood House, where Napoleon spent his last years in captivity.

Napoleon only lasted less than six years in exile. He spent most of his time in Longwood House, built especially for him. But the house and general location were described by Napoleon and his fellow exiles as humid, damp, and unhealthy – conditions which may have contributed to his death.

Napoleon had many health complaints, including liver problems, towards the end of his life, and he died May 5, 1821, at the age of 51. His doctor listed his cause of death as stomach cancer, but for years there was speculation that he was poisoned by arsenic, either deliberately or accidentally. Lately, though, the death-by-poison theory has been discredited.

The former emperor was buried on St. Helena, but in 1840 the French King Louis-Philippe arranged for Napoleon’s remains to be returned to Paris, where they were buried in splendor under the Dome of Les Invalides.

Napoleon spent much of his time on St. Helena dictating his memoirs. Of his contribution to France during the French Revolution, he said: “I have unscrambled Chaos. I have cleansed the Revolution, ennobled the common people, and restored the authority of kings.”

Following Napoleon’s death, the last of his 20 companions in exile left St. Helena. They departed at the end of May in 1821 and arrived back in Europe on August 2 – another summer cruise courtesy of the Royal Navy.

St. Helena today

Although it’s still remote (the internet didn’t reach the island until 2015) today St. Helena is becoming a tourist magnet for history buffs, hardy hikers, rock climbers, bird watchers, and anyone who enjoys an adventure.

The “Saints,” as the residents are called, encourage the tourist trade with charming restaurants and hotels. I’m sure the cuisine and the accommodations are a decided improvement over what Napoleon experienced over 200 years ago.

There is also much natural beauty on the island to enjoy, as well as boat tours that showcase the large pods of frolicking dolphins and scores of whale sharks in the surrounding sea. You can even visit a resident group of tortoises, one of which is almost 200 years old. And of course, there are many memorials to the island’s famous former resident.

The “world’s most useless airport” on St. Helena

The once-arduous trip has been made a little easier with the construction of an airport, although you may want to think twice about taking that route. Flights to the island are notoriously rough due to high winds and the dangerous effects of wind shear.

Before the airport began to offer regular flights in 2017, to get to the island a traveler had to fly to Cape Town, usually by way of Johannesburg, and then be prepared to embark on a 5-6 day boat trip aboard the cargo liner RMS St. Helena. Bad weather or other complications could make the trip even longer.

That puts Napoleon’s 2-month voyage from England to St. Helena into perspective.

Traces of Napoleon

Napoleon’s exile on St. Helena seems an inglorious end for someone who had a spectacular career, especially considering his meteoric rise from the lowly ranks of an artillery officer to becoming the Emperor of France. But even in 1802, over a decade before his final exile, Napoleon seemed aware of the risk that was inherent in an ambition like his, and he accepted it.

As he put it, “It would be better never to have lived at all than to leave behind no trace of one’s existence.”

Napoleon would no doubt be relieved to know that in St. Helena, Europe, and across the world, there are plenty of traces that attest to the existence of Monsieur Bonaparte.

Snuff box depicting Napoleon’s grave on St. Helena. Look for the trompe de oeil image of Napoleon in the trees.

~~

Sources:

  • “From Waterloo to the island of St. Helena,” by Joanna Benazet and Irène Delage,  October 2015 (translation Rebecca Young); Napoleon.org, the history website of the Fondation Napoleon
  • “Why You Should Visit St. Helena, home to the ‘world’s most useless airport’,” by Julia Buckley, Independent.co.us, Thursday, 28 December 2017

Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Napoleon’s reluctant summer cruise

Approaching St. Helena by ship – as Napoleon likely saw the island from the HMS Northumberland in 1815.

 

This summer the cruise ship industry is getting back on its feet after being shut down by the pandemic for 15 months. According to the Cruise Lines international Association, 31.5 million passengers are expected to board a cruise ship in 2023, surpassing 2019 pre-pandemic numbers.

For many, a summer cruise means a fun vacation, a journey to anticipate and an opportunity to escape mundane cares and responsibilities. But a summer cruise 208 years ago promised a different experience for Napoleon Bonaparte.

That August the former Emperor of France set out unwillingly on a special voyage, designed just for him. His ship was no luxury liner; it was more like a prison transport, taking him to his final place of exile.

Consequences of Waterloo

I doubt Napoleon knew he would wind up in St. Helena after two Coalition armies, led by the Duke of Wellington and the Prussian Prince Blücher, decisively defeated the French forces at the Battle of Waterloo on June 18, 1815. But he must have suspected that his glorious career as a European emperor had run its course.

Napoleon on the Bellerophon in Plymouth Sound after surrendering onboard to Capt. Maitland. Artist Charles Eastlake hired a boat to take him to the ship, and he sketched Napoleon from the boat.

Napoleon’s first stop after his defeat was Paris. There he methodically prepared for the next phase of his life. After all, it wasn’t the first time he’d lost a battle and been forced into exile.

However, Napoleon’s stay on the Mediterranean island of Elba in 1814 following the Treaty of Fontainebleau didn’t last long. He traded this relatively cushy exile for another shot at glory when he escaped to France on February 26, 1815, and assembled an army.

After vanquishing Napoleon four months later at Waterloo, Coalition commanders were determined not to let history repeat itself. This time, the consequences of defeat would include a much stricter exile for their former enemy. However, Napoleon still tried to exert some control over where he would spend the rest of his life.

First, though, he had business to attend to. In Paris, he abdicated his throne in favor of his son. Which incidentally didn’t work – the French throne went to Louis XVIII, brother of Louis XVI, the unfortunate monarch who was guillotined during the French Revolution.

The next step in Napoleon’s retirement plan was to escape France and go to the United States. He was even promised a passport to the U.S. by the French provisional government.

But the promised passport never materialized. So Napoleon decided to take matters into his own hands. He went to Rochefort, a port on the southwestern coast of France. Still determined to go to the U.S., he hoped to slip past the Royal Navy blockade.

A thwarted escape 

Napoleon boarding the HMS Bellerophon just outside of Rochefort on July 15, 1815.

But Napoleon’s dreams of escape evaporated when he saw the tall ships of the Royal Navy blocking every conceivable exit. So, on July 15, 1815, Napoleon accepted the inevitable and surrendered to Captain Frederick Maitland aboard the HMS Bellerophon, a British man-of-war anchored off the small island of Aix near Rochefort.

“I have come to put myself under the protection of your prince [that would be the Prince Regent] and your laws,” said the man who was once a feared British foe.

Next, the Bellerophon carried the former Emperor of the French (now known simply as General Bonaparte) to Plymouth and Torquay Harbor on the north shore of Tor Bay.

At Torquay Napoleon stayed on the ship, becoming a tourist attraction for the curious who clustered onto small boats and rowed out into the English Channel hoping to catch a glimpse of the defeated emperor.

If Napoleon thought he’d ever get off a Royal Navy ship while in England he was sadly mistaken. British officials vowed they wouldn’t make the same blunder they’d made in 1814.

So they decided to exile their old enemy to a remote location far away from Europe and any chance of a comeback. On July 31, Napoleon was told that he was headed for St. Helena, an island off the coast of Africa.

Concerned that the aging Bellerophon couldn’t make the voyage, the Navy transferred Napoleon to another ship, the HMS Northumberland, which set sail for St. Helena on August 7, finally leaving British waters on August 9.

Napoleon left the British Isles without ever having set foot on British soil. In fact, he would never return to Europe at all, alive at least.

~~

Sources for this post include:

  • “From Waterloo to the island of St. Helena,” by Joanna Benazet and Irène Delage, October 2015 (translation Rebecca Young); Napoleon.org, the history website of the Fondation Napoleon
  • The Wars of Napoleon: The History of the Strategies, Tactics, and Leadership of the Napoleonic Era, by Albert Sidney Britt III, The West Point Military History Series, Thomas E. Greiss, Series Editor, Department of History, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, Avery Publishing Group Inc., Wayne, New Jersey, 1985.
  • “The Cruise Industry Is Back—and Breaking Pre-Pandemic Travel Records,” by Simmone Shah, Time Magazine, March 16, 2023

Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

 

Beau Brummell and the Snub that Backfired

A ball held in London’s Argyle rooms, as depicted by Isaac Cruikshank in 1825

This month marks the anniversary of one of the most famous snubs in history, or at least in Regency history. For it was in July of 1813 that Beau Brummell snubbed the Prince Regent at London’s Argyle rooms. And that snub, for whatever momentary satisfaction it may have given Brummell, marked the beginning of the end of his career as the undisputed arbiter of men’s fashion and manners in Regency England.

Here’s how it happened:

Beau Brummell, engraving from a miniature by John Cook

Brummell and a trio of his aristocratic chums (Lord Alvanley, Sir Henry Mildmay, and Henry Pierrepoint) decided to host a masquerade ball to celebrate the money they had won gambling at Watier’s Club.

The four dandies reluctantly invited the Prince Regent to their party, primarily because His Royal Highness was determined to attend despite the fact that he had recently quarreled with Brummell.

When he arrived at the ball, Prinny greeted Brummell’s friends but ignored the Beau.

Brummell retaliated by inquiring in a high-pitched voice that penetrated the room’s din: “Alvanley, who is your fat friend?”

Now, the Prince Regent was extremely sensitive about his ever-increasing girth, so he was mortified and infuriated by Brummell’s remark, so much so that he never spoke to the Beau again.

And even though the Prince Regent was enormously unpopular with his subjects, and Brummel’s social standing remained undiminished after the snub (at least for a time), the net effect of the Beau’s unkind remark was that he forever lost his royal patron.

Highly unflattering 1819 caricature of the Prince Regent by George Cruikshank

The damage didn’t seem too bad at first. Despite being shunned by the Regent, for the next few years Brummell remained popular among the ton. Even without Prinny’s favor, he still had many upper class friends and was able to keep his position as the acknowledged leader of fashion.

But Brummell was addicted to gambling, and it was not long before his debts got the better of him. It became increasingly difficult for him to find anyone who would extend him a line of credit, and he piled up thousands of pounds in debts he could not repay.

So the Beau was forced into exile, fleeing to France in 1816 to avoid arrest. He never returned to England, much less to his former glory as the unrivaled authority on what constituted sartorial elegance in Regency London.

Once a king of London’s high society, Brummell died in Caen in 1840 after a stint in debtor’s prison. He ended his days in dire poverty, ravaged mentally and physically by syphilis, dirty and unkempt – a state that was a far cry from his former fastidiousness.

To the end of his life, the Beau hoped the rift between himself and his former patron would heal, especially after the Prince was crowned King George IV in 1821. Unfortunately, a reconciliation never took place.

Whether retaining the future king as a lifelong friend rather than making him an enemy in 1813 would have altered Brummell’s sad fate is impossible to know, but easy to conjecture.

So there you have it – the snub that triggered the downfall of a social lion. This story is a good reminder that a witty  remark can sometimes ricochet, hurting the one who hurled it.

That was certainly true for Beau Brummell.

Statue honoring Brummel in London’s Jermyn St. by Irena Sedlecka, erected in 2002

 

Sources for this post include:

  • The Prince of Pleasure and his Regency, by J.B. Priestley, Harper and Row Publishers, New York, NY 1969
  • Beau Brummell, by Hubert Cole, Mason/Charter, New York, 1977

Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Off to the Races! The Royal Ascot

Depiction of the Ascot Gold Cup race, by James Pollard, 1834

June is a busy month in the UK’s royal calendar. In addition to the King’s Birthday Parade (also known as Trooping the Colour), on the second Saturday of June there’s the Royal Ascot – arguably the most famous horse race in the world.

The Royal Ascot races, held every year, span five days in the middle of June, from Tuesday through Saturday. This year’s event took place last week on June 20-24.

Fabulous hat seen in the Royal Enclosure at the 2009 Ascot

It’s the social event for the sporting season, and a must for everyone who can afford tickets, especially the upper classes who go to see and be seen in their formal clothes. Some female guests like to display their hats – which can be huge, show-stopping creations or whimsical “fascinators.”

Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, 1964

As to the social importance of this royal racing event, who can forget the scene in My Fair Lady when Professor Higgins takes his pupil, Eliza Doolittle, to the Ascot races to prove that he has transformed her from a Cockney flower girl into a “real lady?”

But the Ascot races have a history that started long before the Edwardian setting of George Bernard’s famous play. It’s a history that includes our favorite time period, the Regency.

Here a selective timeline of that history, (as detailed on the Royal Ascot Hub, linked below), from the inception of the races through the mid 1820s:

1711: Queen Anne, an avid horse racing fan, starts a racing tradition at East Cote in London. Her race, called Her Majesty’s Plate, takes place in August and carries a prize of 100 guineas. The race was open to any horse, mare or gelding that was six years or older and capable of carrying a rider weighing 12 stone (168 pounds).

Queen Anne, painted by Michael Dahl, 1705

1744: A ceremonial guard called the Greencoats is formed. The Guard got its name from a rumor that their green uniforms were sewn with fabric left over from curtains made for Windsor Castle. By the early 19th century the guards’ duties expand to include crowd control. Today, Greencoats still can be seen assisting attendees of the Ascot races.

1752: By the mid-18th century the popularity of the annual races, especially among the ton, is becoming apparent. Peers like the Duke of Bedford complain that when he visits London during the races he can find “no soul to dine or sup with.” Surrounding the races are other diversions, and attendees can watch cockfighting and prize-fights, gamble in gaming tents, listen to balladeers, see freak shows and marvel at lady stilt-walkers.

1783: A new rule states that jockeys must wear the colors of their horse’s owners. Up to this point, jockeys could wear whatever colors they wished, making it confusing for spectators to follow the race.

Late 18th century: Men in the Royal Enclosure must don black silk top hats, or “toppers.” Vintage top hats, made from the original material of silk hatter’s plush, are very rare and valuable now. If you can find one that fits your head (apparently men’s heads were smaller 200 years ago) it can cost a small fortune – tens of thousands of pounds.

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Beau Brummel caricature by Richard Dighton, 1805

Early 19th Century: A general dress code for upper class men attending the races develops. Influenced by Beau Brummell, one-time friend of the Prince Regent,  men abandon the bright colors and ornate embroidery of 18th century fashion for plain white waistcoats, and pantaloons, worn with a black cravats. The emphasis is on cleanliness, quality fabrics, and expert tailoring.

1807: This year the Gold Cup, Ascot’s oldest surviving racing event, is introduced. Winners of the Gold Cup today still receive – and get to keep – an engraved gold trophy.

1813: Ascot Heath becomes the new home of the races, thanks to an Act of Enclosure, passed by Parliament. Although the property actually belongs to the Crown, the act guarantees that the land will be used as a racecourse, open to the public.

1822: Prinny, now King George IV, orders the construction of a two-story seating stand at the racecourse. Access to the Royal Enclosure is granted only by the king’s invitation.

1823: The tradition of Ladies Day, also known as Gold Cup Day, starts. It gets its name from an anonymous poet, who describes this day, Thursday of the racing week, as Ladies Day, “when women, like angels, look sweetly divine.”

1825: King George IV inaugurates the first Royal Procession, a tradition which has endured to modern times. Each day of the five-day event begins with the king and queen, along with other members of their royal family, arriving at the racing grounds in horse-drawn landaus. They drive in a procession along the track before going into the Royal Enclosure to watch the races.

There was much excitement at this year’s Royal Ascot when King Charles’s horse, Desert Hero, won Thursday’s marquee race, the King George V Stakes. Desert Hero, ridden by jockey Tom Marquand, was bred by the late Queen Elizabeth II. The odds against the horse winning were long – 18 to 1 – making the victory all the sweeter.

This is King Charles’ first Royal Ascot win as a reigning monarch. It’s yet another first for the newly crowned king.

AscotFinishingPost.JPG
The finishing post at the Ascot racecourse, photo by John Armagh, 2007.

**

Sources for this post include:

The Royal Ascot Hub

“King visibly moved as horse bred by Queen Elizabeth wins at Royal Ascot,” by India McTaggart, Royal Correspondent and Tom Cary, Senior Sports Correspondent, The Telegraph, June 22, 2023

“King Charles III claims his 1st Royal Ascot winner; Dettori rides to victory in Gold Cup,” by The Associated Press, June 22, 2023

All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

 

Trooping the Colour

The 2013 ceremony, which hasn’t changed much over the last 200 years. The two-rank formation of soldiers shown here is a tribute to Wellington’s successful tactics at the Battle of Waterloo.

This month on the second Saturday in June, a curious and uniquely British ceremony took place, as it does every year. Trooping the Colour is a centuries-old tradition full of pomp and pageantry, where anything can, and sometimes does, happen.

King Charles and Queen Camilla after their coronation on May 6, 2023

Also known as the Sovereign’s Birthday Parade, the event officially honors not only the sovereign’s birthday but also the infantry regiments of the British Army.

Typically taking place on the second Saturday in June, it’s one of the biggest events on the royal calendar every year, along with the State Opening of Parliament in May.

The parade starts at Buckingham Palace and goes along the Mall to the Horse Guards Parade grounds, and then to Whitehall, before going back again to Buckingham Palace.

About 1,400 soldiers, 200 horses and 400 musicians took part in this year’s ceremony. This year’s event was especially noteworthy since it marked the first time the newly crowned King Charles III was honored.

Also this year Charles put his own stamp on the ceremony by reviving the tradition of the monarch leading the parade on horseback.

The last time a horse-mounted sovereign led Trooping the Colour was over thirty years ago, when Queen Elizabeth did so in 1986. For the remainder of her reign, she rode in a carriage at the ceremony.

Charles II, circa 1660-1665, by John Michael Wright

The tradition of Trooping the Colour traces its origins back to the reign of Charles II in the 17th century.

Starting in 1748, during the reign of King George II, it became an occasion to publicly celebrate the king or queen’s birthday, no matter what month or day the reigning monarch was actually born. (King Charles was born on November 14, 1948.)

“Colour” is another name for the brightly-colored battalion flags associated with the Five Foot Guard regiments (including the Scots Guards, Irish Guards, Welsh Guards, Grenadier Guards, and Coldstream Guards).

These flags not only showcase the individual spirit of each regiment but also commemorate its fallen soldiers.

In times past, there was a very practical reason to publicly display the “colour” like this – so that the soldiers would be able to recognize the flags of their comrades in the heat of battle.

Every year one of the five Foot Guard Regiments is chosen to display its flag.  This year the 1st Battalion of the Welsh Guards got to troop its color through the ranks of the assembled regiments. The honorary Colonel of the Welsh Guards is Prince William.

The inspection of the military troops and horses typically lasts about two hours. At the conclusion of this year’s event, King Charles and Queen Camilla and other members of the royal family appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to watch a flyover of about 70 RAF (Royal Air Force) aircraft.

George III, sick and unkempt in his final years. Engraving by Henry Meyer, 1817

This was a reprise of a flyover event originally planned for Charles’ coronation in May. That display had to be cut short due to bad weather.

The planes used in the flyover included Hurricanes and Spitfires from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. Also, 18 modern Typhoon fighter jets spelled out “Charles R” (short for Charles Rex) in the sky to honor the king.

Trooping the Colour has been an annual event since the mid-18th century, with a few notable exceptions.

One exception was during the nine years of the Regency, from 1811 to 1820, when the king’s birthday parade was suspended due to King George III’s seclusion and illness. And the military parades were halted again during World War I and World War II.

There have also been a few memorable, unscripted moments, too, during this annual event, especially in the 20th century.

For example, in 1970 a guardsman rather spectacularly fainted while the Queen was reviewing the troops.

The Queen and her horse appear nonplussed by the fallen soldier ,who, though unconscious, has kept admirable form rather than collapsing into a crumpled heap.

And in 1981, a fame-hungry and delusional teenager fired six blank shots, point-blank range, at the Queen as she rode by with her procession from Buckingham Palace, on her way down the Mall to the Horse Guards Parade grounds.

Queen Elizabeth won a lot of praise that day as she kept her composure and her startled horse firmly under control. The young man was wrestled to the ground, charged with treason, and served a five-year prison sentence. When the man who shot blanks at the queen got out of jail at age 20, he changed his name and made a new life for himself.

I think he got off easy, considering how convicted traitors have been treated in the past!

Nothing that dramatic happened at this year’s event, though the King’s horse was notably restless and hard for the king to handle at times, perhaps most embarrassingly while the national anthem was being played.

Temperatures on the day of this year’s Trooping the Colour were in the high 70s, and I’m sure the king’s heavily decorated Welsh Guards uniform was hot for him to wear, but Charles sat ramrod straight on Noble, his horse, throughout the ceremony.

I suppose you could say the new king proved himself to be a real trouper as he led his first official Trooping the Colour!

King Charles on his horse Noble, at 2023’s Trooping the Colour

 

**

Sources include:

“King Charles’ Horse Fails to Keep Still During National Anthem in Clip,” by Jack Royston, Newsweek, June 21, 1923

“What to Know as King Charles Takes Part in His First Trooping the Color Birthday Parade as Monarch,” by the Associated Press, June 17, 2023

 

Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

 

 

Remembering a Historic Battle

 

“Waterloo,” painting by Denis Dighton (1792-1827), showing British Hussars of Viviene’s Brigade

 

June 18 is the 208th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, the epic 1815 encounter that put an end once and for all to Napoleon’s dream of conquering Europe.

Napoleon

The emperor had made a glorious comeback to power a hundred days earlier, after escaping from his exile on the island of Elba, just off the western coast of Italy. Napoleon seemed unstoppable as he made his way in triumph across Europe. It took the combined and well-coordinated military forces of Great Britain and its allies to halt the Emperor’s progress.

Waterloo was where it all come crashing down for Napoleon. His mighty army and his plans for the future of Europe were vanquished on a field near a village just south of Brussels.

On that summer day over 200 years ago the peaceful Belgium countryside was engulfed by the sights and sounds of a deadly battle: the thunder of drumbeats and hoofbeats; frantic shouts; booming guns; the thick, pervasive smog of musket and artillery fire; and the smell of death.

Engaged in fierce fighting against Napoleon’s Armée du Nord was a multi-national military force of British, Dutch and German troops under the command of the Duke of Wellington.

Sir Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1815-1816)

Joining Wellington was the Prussian army led by Prince Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. This wasn’t the 72-year-old Blücher’s first encounter with Napoleon; five years earlier he’d defeated the French general at the Battle of Leipzig.

For such a short conflict Waterloo was extremely bloody, with approximately 50,000 casualties combined on both sides and thousands more wounded, captured or missing. And that carnage doesn’t account for the hordes of dead horses strewn over the battlefield, a gruesome contribution to the hellish scene.

Even worse, because of inadequate medical resources many of the wounded lingered on the open field for days, with no doctors to treat their injuries and prevent unnecessary and excruciating deaths.

So what did the battle achieve? Here are few reasons why the Battle of Waterloo merits attention:

  • First and foremost, Waterloo firmly squashed Napoleon’s hopes for a French-dominated Europe. Following his defeat, the emperor was forced into exile once again, this time on the distant South Atlantic island of Saint Helena, where he died in 1821.
  • The Battle of Waterloo also marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars, which spanned more than 15 years and caused the deaths of an estimated 3-6 million soldiers and civilians. If Napoleon had won the battle, the map of Europe would have been redrawn and the course of history changed.
  • Following Wellington’s victory at Waterloo, Britain became the world’s most powerful nation, expanding its empire and dominating international politics.
  • The aftermath of Waterloo also ushered in a period of relatively long-lasting peace, with no further armed conflict between the major powers in Europe for almost 40 years, until the Crimean War of the mid-1850s. The British army didn’t fight again on Western European soil for almost a hundred years, up to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

A smaller but enduring effect of the battle was the introduction of the word “Waterloo” into the English vernacular, as in the expression “meeting my Waterloo” or facing an ultimate defeat, just as Napoleon did that day.

Gebhard von Blücher

When news of Wellington’s momentous victory reached Great Britain, spontaneous celebrations broke out across the nation. Church bells were rung, people cheered, and students were given half-day holidays. Later, monuments were erected, and bridges and railway stations were renamed in honor of the battle. Poets such as Robert Southey and Byron immortalized the conflict in their work, while artists recreated battle scenes on their canvases.

The famous conflict is still commemorated today, though without the same fervor. Next Sunday, on June 18, the Battle of Waterloo will be remembered and celebrated, as it is every year, by a few regiments of the British Army. In much the same way, the Royal Navy commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar on Trafalgar Day every October 21.

By all accounts, Napoleon was shocked that he’d lost the battle.  Apparently he’d gone into the battle brimming with confidence and could only conclude that it must have been Fate that made him lose. He called June 15 “an incomprehensible day” and claimed “we ought to have won.” In September of 1815, as he set sail to his final exile on Saint Helena, Napoleon even said: “Ah! If it were only to be done over again!”

I think Wellington and Blücher would have disagreed.

A reflective Napoleon in exile on Saint Helena, painted by Franz Josef Sandmann circa 1820

***
For more on the Regency and the Battle of Waterloo, see:

The Regency Years During Which Jane Austen Writes Napoleon Fights Byron Makes Love & Britain Becomes Modern, by Robert Morrison, WW. Norton & Co., 2019

Commemorating Waterloo,” from Age of Revolution: Making the World Over 1745-1848, an educational legacy project from Waterloo 200 Ltd, the official body recognized by the UK government to support the commemoration of the Battle of Waterloo during its bicentenary in 2015 and beyond.

“Napoleon on Waterloo – What did Bonaparte Actually Say About His Most Famous Defeat?” by Shannon Selin, November 19, 2019,  Military History Now

Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

 

 

A Royal Love Story

 

Are you waiting, like me, for Season 3 of Bridgerton? If so, don’t miss the series prequel, Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, now streaming on Netflix. This collaboration between Julia Quinn and Shonda Rhimes offers an in-depth look at one of Bridgerton’s most intriguing characters.

However, don’t mistake this prequel for a documentary. In a prologue to the six-episode series, narrator Julie Andrews points out that Queen Charlotte is not a history lesson but rather “fiction based on fact.”

The story of this oft-overlooked queen’s life deserves a closer look. Her marriage contract signed before she even met the king, the 17-year-old Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz arrived in London on a September afternoon in 1761. Hailing from a remote province in Germany, she couldn’t even speak English.

Six hours later she was marrying her 22-year-old fiancé in a small ceremony in the Chapel Royal at St. James Palace. And two weeks after that she was at her husband’s side at their coronation in Westminster Abbey.

History tells us Charlotte and George conceived 15 children, 13 of whom lived to adulthood. They are the parents of the Prince Regent, later George IV, the man for whom the our beloved Regency era is named.

But what about the private lives of George and Charlotte? How did they relate to each other as a couple?

Queen Charlotte by Joshua Reynolds, 1779 (c) National Trust, Hatchlands; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

This is the focus of the series. It delves into how the teenage queen learns to love her husband and accept his mental illness. The themes of love, marriage and commitment are explored not only through the story of Charlotte’s life, but also though the experiences of Lady Danbury and Violet Bridgeton, matriarch of the Bridgerton clan.

The narrative alternates between the 1760s, when the young queen begins her reign, to the latter Regency years, when Britain is in the grip of a constitutional crisis after the heir to the throne, Princess Charlotte of Wales, dies giving birth to a stillborn son.

Faced with the prospect of no legitimate royal heir (although there were plenty of illegitimate ones) the aging Queen commands her adult children to marry respectable spouses and produce babies. Otherwise, George’s line will die with him, his legacy obliterated, and she’s determined not to let that happen.

It wouldn’t be Bridgerton without the conspicuous interracial mingling at the highest levels of society, and this prequel addresses how that situation came about. Here the king’s mother, Princess Augusta, refers to this racial mixing as the “Great Experiment,” and implies that her choice of Charlotte as Britain’s queen is a large part of it.

Unfortunately, this part of the plot is entirely fictional. The premise is based on the popular belief that Charlotte had African ancestry, and thus she introduced a Black bloodline into the royal family.

1767 pastel portrait of Charlotte with her eldest daughter, by Francis Cotes.

Though this hypothesis has been bandied about for years, it’s never been proven. The discussion of Charlotte’s racial heritage resurfaced more recently when Prince Harry married Meghan Markle, a biracial woman.

Regarding the king and queen’s private relationship, we do know that contrary to the conventions of the time they often slept in the same bed, at least until his madness overcame him. And, although she seldom saw him after his condition deteriorated irrevocably in 1811, Charlotte remained her husband’s guardian until her death in 1818.

In my opinion this prequel is a worthy addition to the Bridgerton saga. It’s well-paced with lots of drama and steamy romance, the acting is top-notch, and the settings, including the costumes, are magnificent, whether the story takes us to the mid-18th century or the latter years of the Regency.

Production details aside, Queen Charlotte is a touching love story. Two young people, strangers at their wedding, learn how to love and care for each other as they also learn how to perform their duties as leaders of their country.

Their path wasn’t smooth, especially at first. But as Violet Bridgerton says many years later over tea with Queen Charlotte and Lady Danbury: “Love can bloom from the thorniest of gardens, can it not?”

And the queen, though somewhat disillusioned by this point, has to agree.

King George III and Queen Charlotte, in the 1770s

Have you seen Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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For more information, see:

“Bridgerton fans, rejoice! The Queen Charlotte prequel series is just days away,”  by Hope Cook, The Tatler, April 6, 2023

“Was Queen Charlotte Black? Here’s What we Know,” by DeNeen L. Brown, The Washington Post, December 27, 2020, updated February  25, 2021 (reprinted in The Seattle Times)

“The Blurred Racial Lines of Famous Families: Queen Charlotte” by Mario de Valdes y Cocom, written in 1997 and  updated March 11, 2021,  PBS. org, for  Frontline

 

Georgian Cartoon for May

Some thoughts

George IV’s attempts to rid himself of his wife absorbed the king, the country, and the press for much of 1820 and 1821. I love the look on the face of the man on the far right holding a pitcher that says, “Trial.”

Abstract:

Print shows George IV, “a conning stoker,” of some “Mischief brewing,” stirring up the “Flames of Persecution,” with “vengeance,” saying, “If this trial fail I’l brew no more.” Behind him is a vat “Filthy composition” into which flows “a pure stream to expose the secrets” which spills on a couple in an embrace, “How do you like it – non mi Ricordo.” Passing an open door is Caroline, “The brewers wife.” On the right are three men, one says, “Be just in all your dealings.” Another, holding a pitcher labeled “a trial” says, “I can’t swallow this, it is all froth.” The third says, “I wonder at our commander engaging in such a business.” Physical description: 1 print : etching, hand-colored. Notes: Forms part of: British Cartoon Prints Collection (Library of Congress).; Paper watermarked on lower right corner: 1820.; Title from item. Library of Congress Catalog: http://lccn.loc.gov/2004670128 

Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons

Byronmania

The portrait of Byron is dated to 1813 by Thomas Phillips, and used via Wikimedia Commons
The portrait of Byron is dated to 1813 by Thomas Phillips, and used via Wikimedia Commons

On March 10, 1812 John Murray published George Gordon, Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Cantos I and II. Murray printed 500 quarto copies, which sold out in three days, costing 30 shillings each (that’s 1£ 10 shillings, or in the modern world about 56£, and quarto refers to printing four pages on each side of a sheet of paper, front and back, and folding the sheet twice, each time folding against the long side. Eight pages are thus printed on one sheet of paper. The person who bought the book would have it bound—either clapboard, cloth or leather—and would need to cut the pages. Or could pay 50 shillings for a bound copy.) Byron did not care for this format.

In Byron: Life and Legend Fiona MacCarthy writes, “He had disapproved of John Murray’s decision to publish Childe Harold in a large format quarto edition, calling it ‘a cursed unsaleable size’.”

Due to demand, Murray immediately came out with an octavo edition of 3,000 copies at 12 shilling (obviously, octavo refers to a book on which 16 pages are printed, and folded three times to produce eight leaves). In less than six months sales of the poem had reached 4,500 copies, and Byron noted, “I awoke one morning and found myself famous.” While a nice quote, that was not quite true.

At the age of 10, Byron had come into his title in 1798 as the sixth Baron Byron of Rochdale, and heir to Newstead Abbey in Nottinghamshire. In November 1806, he distributed his first book of poetry, Fugitive Pieces, printed at his expense. He printed 100 copies of a revised edition in January 1807 as Poems on Various Occasions, and then published another collection of poems in June, Hours of Idleness. It was rather brutally critiqued in the ‘Edinburgh Review’, and after Byron took his seat in the House of Lords in March 1809—he had turned twenty-one in January—he published 1,000 copies of the satirical poem English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers as revenge. This work was well-known, and Byron had already attracted the interest and admiration of those in the Whig party for his first speech in the House of Lords, made in February, 1812, when he spoke against the death penalty for anyone who broke loom frames—he felt he was speaking up for the Luddites in Nottinghamshire. But Childe Harold made Byron into something of a Regency “superstar.”

Byron wrote Childe Harold during his travels, which had taken him from Lisbon to Greece and on to Athens and covered from 1809 to 1811. It has been noted that the poem read something like a travelogue through the Mediterranean, and Byron himself said, “If I am a poet,…the air of Greece has made me one.”

In the spring and summer of 1812, “Bryonmania” took hold. While such a word as “Byronmania” sounds modern, it was actually coined by Annabella Milbank in 1812, long before she became Lady Byron.

March, 1812, also saw Byron launch into an affair with Lady Caroline Lamb, who had been given an advanced copy of Childe Harold and wrote to Bryon on March 9, “Childe Harold I have read your Book & cannot refrain from telling you that I think it & that all those whom I live with & whose opinions are far more worth having–think it beautiful…As this is the first letter I ever wrote without my name & could not well put it, will you promise to burn it immediately & never to mention it? If you take the trouble you may very easily find out who it is, but I shall think less well of Child(e) Harold if he tries—though the greatest wish I have is one day to see him & be acquainted with him.”

On March 25, Lord Byron went to Melbourne House at the invitation of Lady Caroline Lamb and also met Anne Isabella Milbanke. The ladies were also known respectively as Caro and Annabella. Morning waltzing practices were quite the rage, but the dance would not be accepted into Almack’s for another two years. Byron, with his club foot, could not excel at the dance and hated it. He would later write of that morning, “The first time of my seeing Miss Milbanke was at Lady ****’s. It was a fatal day; and I remember, that in going up stairs I stumbled, and remarked to Moore, who accompanied me, that it was a bad omen. I ought to have taken the warning. On entering the room, I observed a young lady more simply dressed than the rest of the assembly sitting alone on a sofa. I took her for a female companion…”

Annabella was also not impressed with Byron, and wrote in her diary, “…I went to a morning party at Lady Caroline Lamb’s, where my curiosity was much gratified by seeing Lord Byron, the object at present of universal attention. Lady C. has of course seized on him, notwithstanding the reluctance he manifests to be shackled by her… I did not seek an introduction to him, for all the women were absurdly courting him, and trying to deserve the lash of his Satire.”

Byron would start an affair with the married Lady Caro, which would last until August. Byron broke off the affair, Caro’s husband William Lamb took her off to Ireland, and when she returned in early 1813 and when Byron made it clear he would not take up with her again, she tried to slash her wrists with a broken wine glass at a ball. She had never been all that stable and would go on to create even more scandals, and then sought revenge by writing and publishing Glenarvon in 1816, which satirized Byron and others, including Lady Jersey (which ended with Caro barred from Almack’s and socially scorned). Byron would wed Annabella Milbanke in 1815—it was not a good match. After settling his debts by selling Newstead Abbey, Byron left England again in April, 1816. Byron, in a fashion, had really become his own poetic hero:

And now Childe Harold was sore sick at heart,
And from his fellow bacchanals would flee;
‘Tis said, at times the sullen tear would start,
But Pride congeal’d the drop within his e’e:
Apart he stalk’d in joyless reverie,
And from his native land resolved to go,
And visit scorching climes beyond the sea;
With pleasure drugg’d he almost long’d for woe,
And e’en for change of scene would seek the shades below.

Read more at:

https://www.mashed.com/450620/how-lord-byrons-vinegar-diet-harmed-a-generation-of-artists/

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lord-byron

What Did Bryon Really Look Like? – https://www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=3324

The Regency Begins

The flattering portrait of Georg IV by Sir Thomas Lawrence
The flattering portrait of George IV by Sir Thomas Lawrence

On Wednesday, February 6, 1811, Prince George took the oath at Carton House that allowed him to become the Prince Regent.

At 48, the prince was no longer the dashing young man once dubbed “Prince Florizel” (due to his affair with the actress Mary Robinson, who had had the lead as Perdita, opposite Florizel, in Shakespear’s ‘The Winter’s Tale’). He had begun putting on weight in the late 1700s, and by 1811, years of heavy drinking and eating meant a need for corsets and face paint. (By 1797, his weight had reached 245 pounds, or 17 stone 7 pounds, and in the 1820s his corset would be sized to a 50 inch waist. Just for breakfast, it was reported he liked: ‘Two pigeons and three beefsteaks, three parts of a bottle of Mozelle, a glass of dry Champagne, two glasses of Port and a glass of Brandy’.)

The Care of King During his Illness, etc. Act had been passed by Parliament the day before the Prince took the oath, creating a limited regency (the full text of the act can be found online at: https://www.heraldica.org/topics/royalty/ukregency.htm#1811),

The London Chronicle of Wednesday, February 6 carried information on what would be called ‘the Regency Bill’ with a postscript that the Prince Regent had been sworn in at two o’clock, and the Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval, had been able to have an interview with the 72-year-old King the previous Friday. At that time, the King was well enough to understand a regency was required. The King requested no change to the ministers or government, and Queen Charlotte also noted she also required those terms to be met. The Prince Regent would not be allowed to grant peerages, or confer lifetime offices, places or pensions for a year, just in case the King recovered. The King’s care was given to Queen Charlotte. She also retained the management of his household and property and she did so until her death at Kew Palace, where the King also lived, on November 17, 1818 at 74 years of age.

In early February 1811, the King had seemed to be recovering from his latest round of bad health. His problems had begun in 1765 with depression, but became serious in 1788 with hallucinations and mental derangement, which kicked off the first regency crisis. The King’s mania and delusions continued from the summer of 1788 into 1789, and in February of that year, the Regency Bill was first introduced. However, King George III recovered and the idea of a regency was shelved, but other attacks of illness would reoccur in 1795, 1801, 1804, and 1810. The King was also going blind.

In 1811, many in Parliament hoped a regency might not be needed. As of February 2, 1811, the Queen had sent a letter to the Prince stating that the King appeared to be recovering. The Tory party worried that if Prince George took power he would reward his Whig friends with a new government—hence all the restrictions. But the Prince agreed to the restrictions, and so the act was carried forward.

Following the pattern set in 1789, without the King’s consent, the Lord Chancellor affixed the Great Seal to letters patent naming Lords Commissioners. This was irregular because only Letters Patent signed by the ruling monarch were meant to appoint Lords Commissioners or grant Royal Assent. However, because the King was incapacitated, resolutions by both Houses of Parliament approved the action and directed the Lord Chancellor to prepare the Letters Patent and affix the Great Seal. (In 1789, the King, after he recovered, had declared this had been a valid and legal action.) There was no Council of Regency set up since the Prince was both of age and heir to the throne. The Prince was required to swear his allegiance to the King, and relinquish the care of the King to the Queen, and she was given a Queen’s council.

On February 18, the Duke of Northumberland sent congratulates to the Prince, writing, ‘the goodness of your heart, & the superiority of your understanding cannot fail, sir, to ensure happiness to the people, who live under your government’. Others saw this whole thing in a less promising light, given that the Prince Regent had promised to keep the Tory party in power. Lord Moria wrote ‘it grieves me to the soul’ [about the] ‘unexplained departure from all those principals which you have so long professed’. The Prince had abandoned the Whig party.

In June of 1811, the Prince Regent held a fabulous celebration at Carlton House, said to be for the King’s Birthday. Everyone, however, knew this was the Prince celebrating being out from under his father’s power. In July, 1811, the King’s condition worsened, and by February 1812 everyone had given up on the King ever recovering his mind and health. The regency restrictions were lifted from the Prince. The Regency was now fully launched and would continue until January 29, 1820 when King George III died and the Prince Regent became George IV.

(On a side note, the London Chronicle reported that on February 5, 1811 “…the Whig Club held their first meeting of the season at the Crown and Anchor, the Duke of Norfolk in the chair”. They must have hoped the Regency would bring the Whigs to power.)

To read more:

https://www.rct.uk/collection/georgian-papers-programme/official-correspondence-of-george-iv-as-regent-and-king-1811-1821

https://regencyredingote.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/and-so-it-begins/

Theodore Hook — Forgotten Genius, Epic Prankster

Pen and ink portrait of Theodore Hook: A young gentleman with curly hair in Regency garments.
Theodore Hook, circa 1810.

Every era boasts its own cast of colorful characters – of people we wish we could have met, if for nothing else than their fascinating audacity. If Regency London could have nominated only one person for that role, it surely would have been Theodore Hook.

The son of a composer, his precocious nature and scathing wit began to win him admirers at a young age. At 16 years old, he co-authored with his father a successful comic opera. He continued writing prolifically, producing 38 novels, multiple operas and comic plays, and various journalistic publications.

So, yes, the most infamous character of the Regency era was, of course, a writer. We should all swell with pride.

 
Continue reading “Theodore Hook — Forgotten Genius, Epic Prankster”

A Romantic Tale and a Screwball Comedy by Lillian Marek

This post originally appeared on Lillian Marek’s blog Tales of Romance and Adventure on March 24, 2015. Reposted with permission from the author.


A Romantic Tale and a Screwball Comedy

In the early 19th century there were four Tree sisters, all of whom went on the stage. (If there were three of them, one could probably create a nice tongue twister, but there were four.) Ellen Tree, who married the noted actor Charles Kean, was the only one who remained in the theater, performing with her husband as Mrs. Charles Kean until his death.

The other three all retired from the stage when they married, and it is only Maria Tree who seems to have left much of an impression. In Our Actresses: or Glances at Stage Favourites Past and Present (1844), Mrs. C. Baron-Wilson comments on Maria’s “simplicity and blameless life … in contrast with many of her sisters in the profession.”

Mrs. Baron-Wilson notes that there was a romantic story attached to Maria’s courtship, but declines to give it. I don’t know why. It’s a charming story as recounted by Captain Gronow in his Reminiscences. Charming, and also very much in the Screwball Comedy tradition. Continue reading “A Romantic Tale and a Screwball Comedy by Lillian Marek”

Patrick Colquhoun, London magistrate by Sheri Cobb South

This post originally appeared on Sheri Cobb South‘s blog on January 6, 2014. Reposted with permission from the author.


Patrick Colquhoun, London magistrate

Painting of Patrick ColquhounSome of my favorite comments from readers regarding the John Pickett mystery series concern the father-son relationship of Pickett and his magistrate, and how much the reader enjoys it. In fact, of the questions I’m asked most frequently about the series (aside from the obvious ones about if, when, and/or how Pickett and Lady Fieldhurst will ever get together), several concern the character of Pickett’s magistrate, Patrick Colquhoun. Readers want to know how his name is pronounced, and why I chose to give a character such a difficult name. To answer the first question, according to Debrett’s Correct Form, the name is pronounced “Ca-HOON,” at least in the United Kingdom.

As for the second question, Continue reading “Patrick Colquhoun, London magistrate by Sheri Cobb South”

Caricatures — Tabloids of the Regency

Caricatures were extremely popular during the Regency era. Thousands were produced, ranging from mild criticism to biting satire, and included political, social, and personal commentary. They were printed from etchings or engravings and sold to whoever would pay for them.

Continue reading “Caricatures — Tabloids of the Regency”

Assembly Rooms – April 2015

Here’s the monthly assemblage of links of interest to lovers of the Regency era — everything from prisoners’ mementos to dishonest valets. Continue reading “Assembly Rooms – April 2015”

Assembly Rooms, January 2015

Assembly Rooms is a collection of links to blogs and articles of interest to lovers of the Regency Era.

Glorious Gothic: http://www.regencyhistory.net/2015/01/strawberry-hill-horace-walpoles-gothic.html

Strawberry Hill by Paul Sandby, courtesy Wikipedia
Strawberry Hill by Paul Sandby, courtesy Wikipedia

An impressive display of carriages: http://www.regencyhistory.net/2014/10/the-national-trust-carriage-museum-at.html Continue reading “Assembly Rooms, January 2015”

The Unruly Queen:   A Review by Cheryl Bolen

Caroline, Princess of Wales, was not a highly visible presence during the Regency. She had long since separated from her husband, the Prince of Wales by the time he became Regent. In the late summer of 1814, Caroline left England and did not return until her husband had become king. In today’s article, award-winning Regency author, Cheryl Bolen, reviews Flora Fraser’s biography of the Prince Regent’s estranged wife.

Continue reading The Unruly Queen:   A Review by Cheryl Bolen”