Pistols for Two, Breakfast for One

“A Duel, 1776,” painting owned by James F. Kulhanek

If you read Regency romances chances are you will sooner or later be drawn into a duel, or at least an account of one. Though it was illegal, dueling was a popular way for Regency males to display their athletic prowess, respond to an insult or settle a debt of honor.

In the 18th century, duels were often fought in London’s Hyde Park. But as the city grew, Primrose Hill (and nearby Chalk Farm) to the north of London became a popular spot for these sometimes-deadly encounters. Primrose Hill was a wooded area, remote from the city but still easy to reach by carriage. According to the Camden History Society, at least seven duelists died on or in the vicinity of Primrose Hill from 1790 to 1837, with 25 exchanges of gunfire recorded.

Duels were fought for the slimmest of reasons. In 1803 one man died and another was severely wounded in a duel that was apparently the result of a disagreement between two dogs. Lieutenant-Colonel Montgomery and Captain Macnamara were walking their dogs in Hyde Park when one of the canines “snarled and growled” at the other. The two officers, who’d never even met previously, went to Chalk Farm to settle the matter.

I don’t know what happened to the dogs, but the colonel was killed in the ensuing duel and the captain was seriously injured. Captain Macnamara was later tried for murder at the old Bailey but was acquitted.

In 1806 the poet Thomas Moore took umbrage at some bad reviews of his work and challenged the editor of the Edinburgh Review, Francis Jeffrey, to a duel. The two men were arrested before the duel could take place. It may not have mattered if the duel had proceeded; contemporary accounts suggest that the dueling pistols were loaded with blank cartridges.

Moore also wanted to fight Lord Byron for Byron’s criticism of his work, but Byron went abroad and by the time he came back to England Moore’s emotions had cooled. The two poets eventually became friends.

The Duke of Wellington in 1830, when he was prime minister of Great Britain (painted by John Jackson)

Even the Duke of Wellington fought a duel, when he was 59 years old and the Prime Minister of Great Britain. Wellington had voted in favor of the Catholic Relief Bill, which allowed Catholics to hold seats in Parliament. The Earl of Winchilsea, a staunch Protestant, accused Wellington of an “insidious design” to infringe on the liberties of British citizens, and also slammed Wellington for the “introduction of Popery into every department of the state.”

Wellington couldn’t let this attack on his integrity go unanswered, and so he challenged Winchilsea to a duel at Battersea Fields in the south of London on March 23, 1829. Wellington deloped (fired his pistol into the air) and Winchilsea did the same when it was his turn. No one was hurt and honor was satisfied.

Though duelists were typically male, more than one pair of women picked up pistols or swords to settle an argument. In 1792 Lady Almeria Braddock challenged Mrs. Elphinstone to a duel in Hyde Park. The cause of their quarrel hinged on the question of Lady Almeria’s age. In true mean girl fashion, Mrs. Elphinstone complimented Lady Almeria on how well she looked – given how old she was.

According to the account in Robert Baldick’s fine book, The Duel, a History, Mrs. Elphinstone began her taunts by using the past tense to describe her friend’s beauty. “You have a very good autumnal face even now,” she added, “but you must acknowledge the lilies and roses are somewhat faded. Forty years ago, I am told, a young fellow could hardly gaze on you with impunity.”

Lady Almeria protested that she was not yet 30, which was overdoing it a bit. Mrs. Elphinstone cited Collins, a source similar to Burke’s Peerage, for proof that Lady Almeria was born in 1732, which would have pegged her age at about 60. What else could Lady Almeria do but challenge Mrs. Elphinstone to a duel?

In what came to be known as the “petticoat duel,” the two women started by firing pistols, and Lady Almeria’s hat was the first casualty. They fought on with swords, and the duel continued until Lady Almeria nicked Mrs. Elphinstone in her arm. At the sight of her own blood Mrs. Elphinstone agreed to write an apology to Lady Almeria, and the duel ended.

The moral here is that some “facts” should be accepted without question, especially when it comes to a woman’s age.

“Two women,” by Martin Engelbrecht, circa 1740-1750

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Sources for this article include:

Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

A Stitch in Time

It’s winter, and cold weather is a great inducement to focus on indoor activities.  For me, that means it’s time to find my yarn basket. I just can’t relax for long without a colorful strand of yarn threaded through my fingers and a project to knit or crochet.

Hand knitting and crocheting, used to make sweaters, socks, and other warm clothing, were once more than cozy activities. They were necessary skills, a method anyone could learn to weave strands of wool into fabric without a loom.

Today knitting and crocheting are regarded as hobbies, still practical but also satisfying, with an added social element. The difference between the two crafts is slight – knitters typically use two needles to make their projects while crocheters use a single hook. You can find knitting and crocheting circles in almost every city or region, along with stores selling a wide array of yarns in a rainbow of colors.

Of the two crafts, knitting is older, probably by hundreds of years. The earliest known pieces of knitting appear to have come from Egypt, between the 11th and 14th centuries. These pieces consist of many types of clothing, including stockings.

1855 illustration from Forrester’s Pictorial Miscellany for the Family Circle

Though knitting is often seen as primarily a woman’s activity now, originally the craft was dominated by men. Europe had men-only knitting guilds until the 1700s. It took three years of intensive of training for a man to become a journeyman knitter, and even longer to reach master status.

Before the Industrial Revolution introduced machine knitting, both men and women learned how to knit as a way to use their spare time to earn money. Socks were especially popular. Knitting as part-time work must have been a common practice; there are many illustrations of shepherds knitting while they watch their flocks.

Knitting and crocheting existed during the Regency, though depictions of fashionable ladies enjoying these activities are rare. Accomplished young ladies were expected to learn how to do fine needlework such as embroidery, along with other skills such as music, watercolor painting, and dancing, plus a few French phrases to sprinkle in conversation. The humbler technique of knitting wool into fabric for clothing was most likely left to the lower classes.

However, according to the authors of Eavesdropping on Jane Austen’s England, girls in Regency England learned knitting, sewing and embroidery regardless of their social background because these crafts were considered vital skills. Women spent a lot of time on their clothes, including sewing, mending, altering or decorating their gowns and bonnets, either for themselves, family members or as charity work.

“Woman Knitting,” by Francoise Duparc, 1726-1778

Here’s what one husband wrote to his wife in 1809:

“You have said nothing about how you pass your time or amuse yourself. I should think you’d be at a loss at times for something to do, tho’ I suppose you nit [knit] a great deal now, and must have improved much. I never expect to have to buy any more worsted [woven wool] stockings.”

Jane Austen refers to knitting in her novel, Emma. After hearing Jane Fairfax praised by her aunt, the voluble Miss Bates, Emma says to Harriet:

“One is sick of the very name of Jane Fairfax. Every letter from her is read forty times over; her compliments to all friends go round and round again; and if she does but send her aunt the pattern of a stomacher, or knit a pair of garters for her grandmother, one hears of nothing else for a month. I wish Jane Fairfax very well; but she tires me to death.” (Chapter 10, Volume I).

The art of crochet is more recent. It appears to have sprung from the pages of ladies’ magazines in the early 19th century, during our Regency period.

The first reference in writing to crochet appears in 1812. In her book, The Memoirs of a Highland Lady, Elizabeth Grant talks about “shepherd’s knitting” as a way to use homespun wool to make items of warm clothing like hats, drawers (underwear) and waistcoats.  An old comb was fashioned into a hook for this work.

There is some evidence that lace making in earlier centuries was a predecessor to crochet. Another theory is that crochet may have evolved from “tambour work,” a type of embroidery done with a hook in 18th century France. The term “crochet” in the early 19th century was spelled as either “crotchet” or “crochet” until about 1848, after which “crochet” was the accepted spelling.

No matter how you spell it, crocheting, like knitting, is a popular hobby, fun as well as useful. I am grateful that women during the Regency period kept these arts alive for the benefit of the generations that followed.

Queen Victoria knitting with her daughter, Princess Beatrice, 1895

 

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Sources for this article include:

  • Eavesdropping on Jane Austen’s England, How our Ancestors Lived Two Centuries Ago, by Roy and Lesley Adkins, published by Abacus, an imprint of the Little, Brown Book Group, a Hachette UK company, London, 2013.
  • Emma, by Jane Austen, published in December 1815, in London by John Murray
  • “Knitting History,” from the Knitting Guild Association website
  • Kooler, Donna, Encyclopedia of Crochet, Leisure Arts. Inc. 2002
  • “The History of Knitting, Part 2: the knitting guilds,” August 16, 2015, The Crafty Gentleman.net

Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

A Regency Love Affair: Emma Hamilton and Lord Nelson, Pt. 2

Pastel of Emma wearing her Maltese Cross award, 1800. Nelson owned this portrait, said to be his favorite of her.

Emma and Lord Nelson – first impressions

Emma Hamilton first met Lord Nelson in 1793 in Naples, where her husband, Sir William Hamilton, was stationed as an ambassador to the court of Ferdinand and Maria Carolina. However, Emma and Nelson’s love affair didn’t heat up until after they met again in 1798.

Frances Nelson, circa 1800

It’s hard to picture how Nelson must have appeared to Emma when she first saw him.

At just 5 feet 4 inches tall, Nelson was not a large man. He was frail with a slight frame. In addition, he was often sick due to bouts of dysentery and malaria, souvenirs of his tropical voyages to places like Calcutta, Madras and Ceylon.

Even more importantly, he was married, with a wife (Frances “Fanny” Nisbet) back in England.

By the time Emma met him again in 1798, Nelson had lost most of his teeth in battle and had been blinded in his right eye from a spray of gravel during the Battle of Calvi in Corsica in 1794.

Losing sight in one eye wasn’t his only serious injury. He also lost his right arm (amputated without anesthetic!) due to injuries sustained during the Battle of Santa Cruz in Tenerife in 1797.

Nelson suffered from coughing spells and a head wound that left him with a scar and blinding headaches. Ironically, the naval hero also endured terrible sea-sickness all his life.

However, none these disabilities kept him from going back to the sea again and again to take command and fight Napoleon, ultimately destroying the French emperor’s naval forces by burning and sinking his ships.

1798 portrait of Nelson in his rear-admiral’s undress uniform. Note the empty sleeve pinned to his chest.

As far as Emma was concerned, none of Nelson’s physical drawbacks lessened his appeal. Nelson was famous, a celebrity, and he must have possessed great personal magnetism because Emma fell passionately in love with him. And he, for his part, was utterly captivated by her voluptuous beauty, sensuality, and kind nature.

Emma proved to be an asset to Nelson militarily, too. She helped him win his victory over the French in the Battle of the Nile in 1798. Reportedly, Emma got permission from the government in Naples for Nelson to obtain supplies and water in Sicily for his fleet before the battle.

Birth of Horatia

By 1799 Emma had gone from a good friend to Nelson to becoming his mistress. And by 1800, Emma was pregnant with Nelson’s child.

Emma, Nelson, and Sir William returned to London, where Emma gave birth to Horatia on January 29, 1801, at the Hamilton home in Piccadilly, London.

While Horatia was being born, Nelson was in Torbay preparing to sail into battle for the Battle of Copenhagen. When he got the news of his daughter’s birth, he was overjoyed.

To avoid more scandal, Horatia’s birth was largely kept under wraps. Nelson and Emma took the role of godparents at the child’s baptism, and later they officially adopted the “orphan.”

A ménage a trois

When Nelson returned to Britain after the battle, he and Emma lived together with Sir William at Merton Place, the Hamilton home in Surrey, in a scandalous ménage a trois. Emma’s mother was also part of the household. Emma became pregnant by Nelson again, but this child, another daughter, died soon after birth.

How much of the love affair between Nelson and his wife Hamilton knew about and tolerated is uncertain. During his life, he acted as though Lord Nelson was merely a good friend of the family, and never showed any animosity to him or treated him as a rival. And for her part, Emma seemed devoted to her husband, treating him with love and affection.

Horatia Ward, daughter of Emma and Lord Nelson

Perhaps Hamilton’s age and ill health had something to do with his attitude. He died in Emma’s arms at the age of 72 in April of 1803. His death left Emma free to remarry.

However, Emma couldn’t marry her lover unless Nelson could get a divorce from his wife, but that was never going to happen. Fanny was adamantly opposed to giving her unfaithful husband a divorce.

Fanny refused to reconsider her decision on a divorce, even though Nelson never lived with her again after she demanded, in 1800, that he choose between her and Emma.

His actual response to his wife’s ultimatum, sent via letter, was: “I love you sincerely but I cannot forget my obligations to Lady Hamilton or speak of her otherwise than with affection and admiration.”

That exchange was the unofficial end of Nelson’s marriage to Fanny. Except, of course, for the pension Fanny received years later as Nelson’s widow, and the tributes she got following her husband’s death in battle.

Trafalgar

Following Sir William’s death, Emma and Nelson stayed together in England, maintaining separate residences for propriety’s sake. That arrangement lasted until Nelson returned to sea once more in 1805 to fight his old foe, Napoleon, for the last time at Trafalgar.

That glorious victory was the last for Nelson, who died a hero. He was shot through his spine while standing on the quarterdeck of his ship, the HMS Victory, during the battle. As he lay dying below decks, among Nelson’s last words was a plea “to take care of poor Lady Hamilton,” a request that went unheeded.

Not a rich man himself, Nelson had actually left instructions for the government to provide for Emma and Horatia, but the government didn’t follow his wishes. Instead, the grateful nation showered money and titles on Nelson’s family, particularly his brother.

Lord Nelson’s magnificent state funeral in St. Paul’s Cathedral, 1806

Nelson’s funeral

The nation mourned Nelson’s death and he was given a grand state funeral, an honor previously restricted to members of the royal family. Royalty, minsters, peers of the realm and at least 10,000 soldiers accompanied his coffin in its procession from the Admiralty to St. Paul’s cathedral on January 9, 1806.

Seven thousand people were at Nelson’s funeral service, including seamen and marines from the HMS Victory, seven royal dukes, 16 earls, 32 admirals and over 100 captains.

And yet, Emma, the love of Nelson’s life, was denied permission to attend, much less sing at his funeral as he had requested.

Emma’s life after Nelson

After Nelson died, Emma’s life spiraled downward. Sir William had left her a modest pension, but she soon exhausted it through gambling and extravagant spending. She even lost Merton Place, because she couldn’t afford to maintain it.

In the years following Nelson’s death, she repeatedly asked the government for money but was ignored. She successfully petitioned others for financial relief but was never able to hold on to the small sums she sometimes received.

While Nelson was alive, apparently neither she, Sir William nor Nelson saw anything wrong with their unconventional living arrangement. But the rest of England didn’t agree, and society judged her harshly for it when the men involved were gone.

As she aged Emma’s charms faded; she grew quite stout and began to drink heavily to the detriment of her health. Unable to pay her debts, she was arrested and went to King’s Bench Prison, keeping her daughter Horatia beside her in the vain hope that the child would give her some leverage with her creditors.

King’s Bench Prison in London, engraving by Thomas Rowlandson, 1809

The end of Emma

On a temporary reprieve from prison in April of 2014, Emma managed somehow to get passage across the English Channel to Calais, with 13-year-old Horatia in tow. She eventually went from a hotel lodging to a squalid single room where Horatia had to tend to her bodily needs, nursing her mother and pawning their meager belongings for money to survive.

Emma finally died, of liver failure and in dire poverty, at age 49 in Calais on January 15, 1815.

There was no money for a funeral, no money to honor Emma’s wish to be buried in England. It was thanks to the charity of an Irish officer on half-pay that she had any services at all.

But on the day Emma was laid to rest, the master and captain of every English ship in the port of Calais put on his best clothes and went into town to follow her coffin to her grave. They did it as a final act of loyalty to Nelson who had been so steadfast and sincere in his love for his mistress.

Following Emma’s death, Horatia went back to England, traveling in disguise as a boy to escape Emma’s creditors. She was taken in by one of Nelson’s sisters, and eventually married a clergyman, Philip Ward.

Horatia got to enjoy the happy family life that eluded Emma; she bore Ward 10 children and lived to be eighty. However, although she was proud that Nelson was her father, she never publicly admitted that Emma was her mother. That could be because she never got over her miserable experiences in debtor’s prison and later in Calais with Emma.

So this is a good month to remember “poor Lady Hamilton,” a woman who, like Shakespeare’s Othello said of himself, “loved not wisely but too well.”

Admiral Nelson and Emma Hamilton in Naples, as imagined by an unknown German painter in the early 19th century

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Sources used for this post include:

  • Emma Hamilton, by Norah Lofts, published by Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc. New York, 1978
  • Entry for “Lady Hamilton” in Britannica.com, copyright 2024 Encyclopedia Britannica Inc.
  • “Nelson, Trafalgar, and those who served . . . ”  National Archives, UK government
  • “Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson’s State Funeral,” The History Press, copyright 2024.
  •  “Horatio Nelson, 1758-1805, Vice Admiral of the White,”  Royal Museums Greenwich
  • “Admiral Lord Nelson,” by Ben Johnson, Historic-UK.com
  • “Emma’s end: death, exile and defiance,” Royal Museums Greenwich

Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

A Regency Love Affair: Emma Hamilton and Lord Nelson, Pt. 1

Emma before she became Lady Hamilton, painted by George Romney in 1785

This month marks the 209th anniversary of the death of Emma Hamilton. She was best known during the Regency as Emma Hamilton, wife of Sir William Hamilton and the mistress of naval hero Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson. Theirs was a passionate affair, and this is the story of two intertwined lives, one of which ended in glory and the other in obscurity.

I’ll bet you can guess who got the glory and who didn’t.

Now, I find Emma fascinating for a number of reasons. She was a bright spark of a girl, born in poverty but soon able to use her good looks and vivacious personality to get ahead in life.

She was fortunate to find a kind man to marry her and a great man to love her. But she was unable to secure the affection of her children, and by the end of her life she lost everything, perhaps because she never developed the strength of mind and character that’s so often needed to deal with life’s trials and tribulations.

See what you think. Here are some biographical facts about Emma.

Emma’s early years

Emma Hamilton was born as Amy (some sources say Emily) Lyon in 1765 in a Cheshire country village in 1765. Her father, Henry Lyon, was an illiterate blacksmith who died when she was only 2 months old. His daughter was raised by her mother and grandmother in Wales. Later, Amy Lyon changed her name to Emma Hart.

Her mother also changed her name from Mary Kidd to Mrs. Cadogan, and Mrs. Cadogan spent the rest of her life (she died on another January day in 1810) by Emma’s side, apparently exerting a good influence that was sorely missed after she was gone.

Emma’s mother and grandmother struggled to make ends meet, and Mary went to London in 1777, leaving 12-year-old Emma behind. The girl got a job working as a maid for a surgeon in Chester. But she soon followed her mother  to London.

In London Emma found work as a maid and nursemaid in people’s homes.  She also worked as a maid to actresses at the Drury Lane Theatre in Covent Garden. But as Emma blossomed in her teens, her beauty became abundantly apparent. With her lithe figure, masses of red-gold hair and large blue-gray eyes, she attracted a lot of attention. She also possessed natural talents in singing and dancing.

It wasn’t long before Emma went from working as a maid to being a model and dancer at the risqué “Temple of Health and Hymen” at the Adelphi, run by James Graham, a fake Scottish doctor. This was her introduction into the shady world of London’s demi-monde.

By the age of 15, Emma had found a protector, Sir Henry Fetherstonhaugh, who made her his mistress and used her as a hostess to entertain his male friends at his country estate, Uppark.

Emma and Charles Greville

About this time 16-year-old Emma became pregnant, and a furious Sir Henry turned her out. There’s some dispute among her biographers whether Sir Henry was the father, or the father was one of his guests, the Hon. Charles Francis Greville, younger son of the Earl of Warwick.

Charles Francis Greville

In any case, it was Greville that a frantic Emma appealed to for help and Greville who took her in, arranging support for her child.

Greville agreed to take Emma as his mistress providing that her child, a girl, was fostered by someone else. Though Emma was allowed some contact with her daughter the child was raised by others, and later in life Emma refused to even acknowledge the girl as hers.

It was also Greville who introduced Emma to his friend, the painter George Romney. The beautiful young woman soon became Romney’s muse, and he made about 30-50 portraits of her (some clothed, some nude) when she was in her late teens and 20s.

Emma meets Sir William Hamilton

It seems that the ebullient Emma believed herself madly in love with the much older and more serious Greville, and he took care of her for a time. But when Greville got the opportunity to marry a rich young woman, he handed his mistress off to his uncle, Sir William Hamilton, who was in Naples serving as a British ambassador to the court of Ferdinand and Maria Carolina.

Hamilton was in his mid-50s and a widower when he met Emma, who was half his age. He was lonely, and he needed a hostess for his salon in Naples. Greville assured his uncle that the arrangement was only temporary; he promised that once he was safely married to the 18-year-old heiress he was courting he would send for Emma.

Greville didn’t tell Emma about his plans, or that she was going to Naples to become his uncle’s mistress. She thought she was going to Italy for a holiday with her mother, who was recovering from a stroke.

Sir William Hamilton, painted by George Romney in 1783-84

Emma arrived in Naples on her 21st birthday on April 26, 1786. After six months of begging Greville to come and get her, she finally understood she had been cast off. That realization must have been devastating.

At first, Emma’s relationship with Hamilton was platonic. However, the British diplomat gradually became enamored of the young woman, and they began an affair.

Then Hamilton went a step further and sought and received special permission from King George III to marry his mistress. (Because Sir William held a public position, he needed the king’s authorization to marry.)

That permission was grudgingly granted, and William and Emma returned to London and married on September 6, 1791, in St. Marylebone Parish Church, when the diplomat was 60 and his young wife was only 26.

Despite the wedding, George III still disapproved of the new Lady Hamilton, and Emma was never received at court in England. At that time, once a woman’s reputation was lost she never really recovered it, even with the mantle of respectability that matrimony might bestow.

Emma’s “Attitudes”

While in Naples, Emma quickly became noted throughout Europe for her “attitudes” a performing art she helped popularize. In these “attitudes” Emma combined her skills in modeling, acting, and dance to portray classical sculptures and  paintings for British visitors.

Attitudes were a popular parlor game, much like charades, at the end of the 18th century, with girls striking poses and their audience guessing who they were trying to be. Of Emma, it was said that with nothing but a shawl and a couple of scarves she could convincingly portray any number of classical figures from Greek myths.

With her poses and props, Emma inspired many artists in England and Europe to try and capture her essence in their work. And of course, satirists followed suit.  Here’s a portrait of Emma painted in Naples in 1792 by French painter Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun:

“Lady Hamilton as the Persian Sibyl”

And here’s a caricature of Emma performing one of her attitudes, created by Thomas Rowlandson in the mid-1810s:

However, Emma did more than entertain others in Naples as Sir William’s hostess and later, his wife. She became the friend and confidante of Maria Carolina, the Queen of Naples and Sicily. Maria Carolina was also the sister of Marie Antoinette.

Emma bravely helped Maria Carolina and her children escape the French mob that threatened to overrun Naples while the French Revolution raged in France. Emma was also awarded the Cross of Malta medal for her work in getting supplies to that island while the French occupied it in 1798.

Emma meets Lord Nelson

Though uneducated, Emma seems to have been remarkably intelligent, witty, and resourceful, a friend to crowned heads and consort to famous men. And in the late 18th and early 19th century, few men were more famous than Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, (who was also 1st Viscount Nelson and 1st Duke of Bronte). Nelson was a celebrated war hero, the victor of many naval battles in the decades-long fight against Napoleon.

Nelson met Emma and her husband in Naples in 1793, while Sir William was stationed there. But their affair didn’t start until five years later, when Emma and Lord Nelson’s paths crossed again.

Following Nelson’s victory in the Battle of the Nile in August of 1798, Sir William graciously invited the Vice-Admiral to stay with him and Emma at their villa in Naples. Nelson needed a place to stay while his ships were being refitted and supplies obtained. I’m sure the naval hero also needed some rest and relaxation following the fight.

Sir William’s invitation was the beginning of a romantic, and scandalous, love affair between the beautiful Emma and the brave Horatio. By the end of 1799 Nelson and Emma were lovers, and in 1800 Sir William, Emma and Nelson returned to England together. By then, Emma was pregnant with the Vice-Admiral’s child.

Next time: A tragic end for Emma

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Sources used for this post include:

  • Emma Hamilton, by Norah Lofts, published by Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc. New York, 1978
  • Entry for “Lady Hamilton” in Britannica.com, copyright 2024 Encyclopedia Britannica Inc.
  • “Emma Hamilton and Lord Nelson,” Royal Museums Greenwich
  • “Emma, Lady Hamilton,” by Ben Johnson, Historic UK

Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

A Fashionable Rout

“Lady Godina’s rout; – or – Peeping-Tom spying out Pope-Joan,” by James Gillray, 1796.

In my last post I talked about the riddles that appeared in Jane Austen’s Emma. Another form of entertainment that was popular in Georgian England and also features in Emma is a rout-party, or rout.

Routs were informal social gatherings hosted by the well-to-do in their homes. There were many types of routs – they could feature amusements such as conversation, music, card-playing, and, of course, plenty to eat and drink. In London a really successful rout could be thronged with guests, resulting in a “crush” that was sure to enhance the party-giving reputation of the hostess.

In Chapter XVI, Volume II of Emma, Mrs. Elton complains about the local routs she’s attended, noting “the poor attempt at routcakes [small, sweet cakes] and there being no ice in the Highbury card-parties.”

She plans on showing how a proper rout is done by hosting “one very superior party—in which her card-tables should be set out with their separate candles and unbroken packs in the true style—and more waiters engaged for the evening than their own establishment could furnish, to carry round the refreshments at exactly the proper hour, and in the proper order.”

In the wicked satire above, Gillray pictures a teen-aged Lady Georgina Gordon (i.e. “Lady Godina”) gambling at a crowded rout-party, playing a card game called Pope Joan. She’s holding the “Curse of Scotland” or the nine of diamonds, which is a winning hand. The gowns, and especially the huge feathery headdresses, are comically exaggerated.

These large evening get-togethers could get pretty rowdy, which is most likely why the military term of “rout” (meaning a disorderly retreat) became the accepted way to describe them. I’m sure, however, that Mrs. Elton’s rout-party would be a completely proper and sedate affair, as befits a vicar’s wife!

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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Fun with Words: Riddles, Rebuses and Jane Austen

Jane Austen must have had fun writing her fourth published novel, Emma. In addition to sparkling dialogue, funny situations, and comic misunderstandings, she included a couple of riddles.  If you have the book handy, these riddles (also referred to as charades) appear in Chapter IX of Volume I.

Here’s how the riddles appear: Emma is attempting to improve her protégé Harriet’s mind with reading and conversation, but the only literary pursuit that interests Harriet is collecting riddles, which she is compiling into a book.

Emma sees an opportunity to further her misguided scheme of matching Harriet with Mr. Elton. She asks the vicar to contribute a riddle to Harriet’s collection. He replies with this convoluted gem:

“Another view of man, my second brings, Behold him there, the monarch of the seas!

But ah! united, what reverse we have! Man’s boasted power and freedom, all are flown; 

Lord of the earth and sea, he bends a slave, And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone. 

Thy ready wit the word will soon supply, May its approval beam in that soft eye!”

Emma solves the riddle right away but has to explain it to Harriet. It’s a two-syllable word, she tells her friend. “My first” or the first syllable signifies “court” (the wealth and pomp of kings) and the second (monarch of the seas) is “ship.” Put together, the answer is “courtship,” during which a man “bends a slave” and “woman, lovely woman, reigns alone.”

Emma is convinced that the riddle is a compliment to Harriet, announcing Mr. Elton’s wish to court her. But Emma is clueless, of course. She doesn’t get that Mr. Elton meant the riddle for her.

In any case, riddles were a popular pastime in Regency England. Here’s another riddle, well-known in her time, that Jane Austen also mentions in Chapter IX:

“My first doth affliction denote, Which my second is destin’d to feel 

And my whole is the best antidote, That affliction to soften and heal.

Thy ready wit the word will soon supply, May its approval beam in that soft eye!”

Once again the answer is a two-syllable word. The first syllable, a synonym for affliction, is woe. The second syllable refers to who feels the pain – man. So the answer to the riddle of what is the best cure for man’s pain is woe-man or woman.

Though this riddle is discussed by Emma and Harriet the answer isn’t spelled out in the text – probably because the author figured everybody already knew it.

But perhaps the best-known riddle of all time is the classic Riddle of the Sphinx. Jane Austen would almost certainly have been familiar with it. It’s in Oedipus Rex, a play written by the Greek dramatist Sophocles approximately 430 years BCE.

“Oedipus and the Sphinx,” by Jean-Auguste-Dominque Ingres, 1808

In the story, Oedipus has to get into the city of Thebes. But he has a problem: the entrance to the city is guarded by the Sphinx, a mythical creature that has the face of a woman, the body of a lion, and the wings of a bird.

The Sphinx amuses herself by demanding that anyone who wants to enter the city answer a riddle first. If they don’t get the right answer – and, spoiler alert, no one does – she eats them. That’s why the Sphinx is often depicted in art with the remnants of her victims at her feet.

Here’s her riddle: “Which creature has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?” Do you know the answer? Oedipus did, so the Sphinx went hungry that night.

The answer is man – as a baby he crawls on all fours, as an adult he walks on two feet, and as an old man he walks with a cane – the cane is the third foot.

Riddles were popular brain teasers in the 18th and 19th centuries. One form of entertainment was a riddle menu, where you had to figure out what items were on a menu by solving a riddle.

For example, would you care for some “counterfeit agony”? You might turn that offer down until you realize it’s a riddle: “counterfeit” means “sham” and rhymes with “cham,” while “agony” is “pain” and rhymes with “pagne.” Now, how about that glass of champagne?

Bishop Oldham’s “owl-dom” rebus in Exeter Cathedral

In addition to riddles, a type of puzzle known as a rebus was another popular game, not only in the 18th and 19th centuries but going back as far as the Middle Ages.

A rebus is a word puzzle that uses pictures combined with letters to illustrate a word, a phrase, or even a whole sentence. It’s like a code you have to decipher to understand the message.

During the Middle Ages, rebuses were used in heraldry. A rebus often represented a surname in a family crest.

Jane Austen may have been familiar with a children’s Bible published by English painter and engraver Thomas Bewick during the 1780s in London.

Bewick’s book bears a ponderous title that begins with “A new hieroglyphical Bible: for the amusement & instruction of children: being a selection of the most useful lessons, and most interesting narratives (scripturally arranged) from Genesis to the Revelations : embellished with familiar figures, & striking emblems; elegantly engraved”  and continues for several more lines.

In his book, Bewick often uses pictures in place of text to simplify the stories and make them more appealing to children. A few years after this book came out in England, Isiah Thomas published a similar rebus-filled children’s Bible in America.

Here’s a Victorian example of a rebus on an “escort card” (also known as acquaintance or flirtation cards) that a 19th-century man might give to a woman he’s interested in courting:

“May I see you home, my dear?”

Rebuses are still popular today, used by advertisers, in books and on game shows, and even in the form of emojis in text messages and emails. Any parent who’s ever sat with a child in an American doctor or dentist’s office has likely seen the rebus page in the magazine Highlights for Children.

A rebus may have been difficult for Jane Austen’s publishers to add to her manuscripts, even if she wanted one in her stories. But at least we have proof in Emma that Jane enjoyed a good riddle!

~~

Sources for this post include:

  • Riddles, Charades, Rebusses, from the British Library Collection
  • “Decoding (Most of) an 18th-Century ‘Riddle Menu’,” by Anne Ewbank, Atlas Obscura, October 26, 2018
  • Emma, by Jane Austen, published December 23, 1815, by John Murray, London

Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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

November in Georgian History

The Napoleonic Wars Finally End: the Second Treaty of Paris signed November 20, 1815

It is tempting to assume the wars ended at Waterloo on June 18, 1815, with the surrender of the French. In fact, the French army fled the field in shocking disarray without so much as a rear guard action pursued through the night by Blucher and the Prussians. A full-scale invasion of France followed with multiple skirmishes and small battles as Napoleon himself fled south and ultimately reached Paris to face a hastily formed provisional government.  There had been no surrender.

Napoleon flees the field.

The Emperor abdicated in favor of his son, Napoleon II, on June 22—four full days after Waterloo. The provisional government, however, rejected his son, and he was forced to leave Paris. He attempted to flee to America before falling into the hands of the British navy. The provisional government attempted to negotiate terms of surrender, but coalition troops demanded nothing less than the restoration of King Louis XVIII, and it wasn’t until June 2 that hostilities finally ceased. Louis entered Paris on July 8. Months of negotiations over reparations, restorations, and even looted art, resulted in the treaty that finally ended the wars that had embroiled Europe for decades. November 20 marks the formal end of the Napoleonic Wars.

Anti-vaxers 1802

In this picture, Edward Jenner vaccinates a reluctant patient with cowpox matter to prevent the more serious smallpox. Meanwhile, those already vaccinated show many, er, unusual side effects from the process. Previously innoculations for smallpox involved cutting the skin and using actual smallpox matter. It was called variolation and was much riskier. The word vaccine comes from Jenner’s method and takes its name from “vacca,” the Latin word for cow. Then as now, new developments could be met with skepticism.

James Gillray, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

October in British History

October 5, 1813 The death of Tecumseh

In response to continuing conflict on the frontier and his ongoing struggle to create a secure independent homeland for a confederation of native groups, the great Shawnee chief, Tecumseh, threw in his lot with the British when the United States declared war and invaded Canada. Given the rank of brigadier general, he and his troops fought under (the unfortunately incompetent) Major General Henry Proctor as part of the Army of Upper Canada. Proctor, forced to retreat from Detroit, was soundly defeated at the Battle of the Thames on October 5, 1813. Tecumseh died that day and his body was taken away and hidden. William Henry (later President) Harrison, who feared Tecumseh could actually succeed in his efforts to unite native peoples against American expansion, described him as “one of those uncommon geniuses.” His death was a tragedy for First Nations.

The Death of Tecumseh, frieze in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, public domain

September in Georgian History

September 29, 1829
An act of Parliament, at the request of Sir Robert Peel, created the Greater London Metropolitan Police Force, later known as Scotland Yard. The men, afterward nicknamed “bobbies,” were named after Sir Robert himself.

Portrait of Sir Robert Peel by Robert Richard Scanlan
“BLEST IF THEY HASNT PUT , ON A BOBBY! PRETTY STATE WE RE COMIN TO, WITH THEIR CENTRALISATION! LETS CUT TO LAMBETH.” PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.1866

August in Georgian History

We recently reported that Napoleon was exiled to Saint Helena in August 1815 and that Queen Caroline, the princess whose husband banned her from his coronation, died in August 1821. Here are some other notable events:

August 12, 1822, Lord Castlereagh, British Foreign Secretary, who was Foreign Secretary during the defeat of Napoleon, committed suicide.

August 16, 1819, A brigade of cavalry charged into a crowd of 60,000 people who had gathered at Saint Peter’s Field in Manchester to demonstrate in favor of parliamentary reform. At least eighteen people died, and hundreds were injured. It became known as the Peterloo Massacre.

Peterloo, Engraving by Richard Carlisle, 1790-1843

July in Georgian History

The Napoleonic war—or, more properly, wars were long and costly. Not every battle ended in victory. On July 25, 1797, Britain lost one and almost lost a treasure. Admiral Horatio Nelson led an ill-fated attack on the island of Tenerife. A cannonball hit Nelson as he stepped ashore. The result—a compound fracture and a severed artery—could have killed him. Quick action saved his life at the cost of his arm. His reputation as a hero was enhanced in spite of the loss.

Nelson Wounded at Tenerife by Richard Westall

June in Georgian History

The most famous June event in British History was, of course, The Battle of Waterloo, which Maureen Mackay so eloquently presented last week. The wars had dragged on for decades.  It is interesting to note that in the years that followed the emperor’s defeat significant firsts include things considerably more peaceful in nature.

June 22, 1814, (with Napoleon in exile on Elba) The Marylebone Cricket Club (which had formalized the rules of the game in 1797) and Hertfordshire played the first-ever cricket match at England’s Lord’s Cricket Ground.

June 10, 1829, The Oxford team won the first-ever Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Race, aka “The Boat Race.” Cambridge won the 168th this past March.

A Game of Cricket (The Royal Academy Club in Marylebone Fields), artist unknown

Help For Bad Hair Days, Regency Edition

Wellcome Images; © CC BY 4.0

An experience most of us can relate to is a bad haircut. You go to the hairdresser with high hopes that are soon dashed – either the first time you look in the mirror after your cut or in the days that follow. And for me, at least, the shorter the hair cut the more likely the regrets.

Regency women were no different. But for them getting their hair cut short wasn’t just one option out of many at the hair salon. It meant adopting a daring, ground-breaking style that broke the centuries-long tradition of long hair for women.

When the fad for short hair first hit the fashion scene in the 1790s, many women eagerly embraced it. And it’s easy to see why: the new look gave women welcome freedom from the elaborate hairdos of the 18th century.

Women were happy to say goodbye to powder and pomatum, along with sitting for hours as hairdressers teased and arranged their long hair over pads and cushions to make their coiffures rise to unlikely heights.

Woman with a Titus cut circa 1810. (Wikimedia Commons)

From 1800 to 1810, the style that was all the rage for women (and men, too) was à la Titus. This short cut was a more natural look, styled with hair devoid of any powder.

The grisly inspiration for this cut was the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. Aristocrats condemned to death on the guillotine had their hair cut short to make it easier for the blade to do its work. Like its fashion inspiration, the à la Titus style also exposed the neck.

Besides the dictates of fashion, another reason this unpowdered style became popular in Great Britain was the Duty on Hair Powder Act passed by Parliament in 1795.

In effect, this “duty” was a tax that had to be paid by anyone purchasing hair powder. There were a few exceptions (including the royal family, some clergy and military men) but otherwise there were substantial fines for anyone who violated the act.

So, this seemed to many like a good time to ditch the hair powder. There was still a need for a bit of pomatum; scented pomades were used to create a tousled effect in the short hair, and to define curls. But powder was definitely yesterday’s news. (Never fear – hair powder has made a comeback in our time, reincarnated as dry shampoo.)

Georgian woman with fashionable hairstyle, 1779. (Wikimedia Commons)

Some people were appalled by the new style. They deemed it unnatural, ugly and masculine. But that didn’t deter fashionable women from embracing the Titus cut. It must have felt liberating after the towering, time-consuming hair styles they’d worn before.

Plus, this daring new hair cut had a few variations. For those who were reluctant to chop all their hair off, tresses could be cut short in the front and sides, and left long in the back.

That may sound familiar – the look resurfaced in the 1970s-80s with the mullet, which is perhaps better known as “business in the front, party in the back.”

Jane Austen might have had something resembling a mullet. In a letter to her sister Cassandra in 1798 she explains why she loves to wear caps:

“I have made myself two or three caps to wear since I came home, and they save me a world of torment as to hair-dressing, which at present gives me no trouble beyond washing and brushing, for my long hair is always plaited up out of sight, and my short hair curls well enough to want no papering [curlers].”

Jane in one of her caps.   (Wikimedia Commons)

Sometime later Jane confessed she’d gone ahead and had her short hair curled, but she regretted it. She thought the curls looked “hideous and longed for a snug cap” to hide them.

Jane also was critical of the Titus cut, especially the short-all-over variation. When her niece Anna boldly chopped off her locks in accordance with the latest fashion, Jane described the girl’s “sad, cropt head,” adding that the haircut was very much regretted. (I couldn’t help but wonder, though, if it was Aunt Jane or Anna who regretted the cut.)

Women who got the cut and then had second thoughts about sporting short hair found ways to modify their new look. And they had more than caps to work with.

Wigmakers did a thriving business, and in addition to wigs, fashionable women used swatches of false hair and braids to augment their shorn locks. Feathery plumes, flowers, jeweled combs and ropes of pearls also dressed up their new hairstyles.

Today we have many more choices when it comes to how we wear our hair.  However, one thing remains constant from the Regency era to our own: with or without a new hairstyle, a bad hair day is always a possibility.

 

Woman getting a hairstyle she may  regret. (Wellcome Images; © CC BY 4.0)

 

Sources for this post include:

Voices from the World of Jane Austen, by Malcolm Day, a David & Charles Book, F&W Publications, Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio, 2006.

Jane Austen’s Guide to Good Manners, Compliments, Charades and Horrible Blunders, by Josephine Ross and Henrietta Webb, published by Bloomsbury USA, New York, 2006.

The Regency Companion, by Sharon H. Laudermilk and Teresa L. Hamlin, Garland Publishing, Inc., New York and London, 1989.

“Coiffure Legendaire: the story of Titus haircut, the 1st short hairstyle,” by the editorial team of Estetica Hair Magazine, January 12, 2014.

The American Duchess Guide to 18th Century Beauty, by Lauren Stowell and Abby Cox, with Cheyney McKnight, Page Street Publishing Co., Salem Massachusetts, 2019.

May in Georgian History

May 5, 1821 Napoleon died at 5.49pm at Longwood on the island of St Helena. Mystery has surrounded it ever since. There are some primary sources to be found here: https://www.napoleon.org/en/history-of-the-two-empires/close-up/a-close-up-on-napoleons-death/

Charles de Steuben, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

“The Queen of Hearts cover’d with Diamonds”

We’ve seen a glamorous, idealized version of Queen Charlotte in the first two seasons of the Bridgerton on Netflix and also in Queen Charlotte: a Bridgerton Story, the prequel now streaming.  But is that how Charlotte’s contemporaries saw her, particularly through the work of irreverent artists like James Gillray and other satirists?

Not so much.

For example, there’s the 1786 hand-colored etching shown above. It features Queen Charlotte taking a pinch of snuff (apparently she was addicted to it) while completely bedecked in jewels.

There are diamonds in her hair, in her turban, dangling from her ears, around her neck, sewn into her gown and on her fingers.  So much bling!

It’s a satiric look at the queen’s greed and her conspicuous display of wealth, especially the jewels she and the king were gifted by foreign dignitaries.

A decade later, a correspondent of the Irish peer Lord Charlemont referred to the middle-aged queen as “the old Queen of Diamonds.” If this print is representative of how the Court of St. James saw their queen, it’s easy to see why he used that term.

Here’s another print, from 1798, again mocking the supposed avarice of the queen. She’s shown rather simply dressed for a royal, but her elaborate hairstyle, festooned with jewels, gives off definite Queen-Charlotte-as-seen-in-Bridgerton vibes.

The 1791 print below illustrates more or less on the same theme, the greedy queen and king. It was done by the most notable caricaturist of the time, James Gillray. In this picture the king and queen are receiving their son, the Duke of York, and his wealthy bride.

It’s not a flattering portrait of Charlotte, who’s depicted with coarse facial features, dressed like a countrywoman but with a crown on her head. She’s eagerly scooping gold coins from her daughter-in-law’s dowry into her apron.

 

But not all caricatures of the queen and king were savage. Here’s a more flattering picture of the couple, shown here in 1803 enjoying an after-dinner dessert and entertainment. They are watching the angry protests of a doll-sized Napoleon with amusement.

Perhaps some patriotism kicked in while the artist was drawing this political cartoon; he portrays the king and queen looking pleasant and even attractive as they toy with Britain’s great enemy.

In many of the satiric prints I saw, Charlotte is dressed as a farmer’s wife, a reference to “Farmer George” the nickname often attached to the king.

Here’s an example, a caricature of the royal couple created by Richard Newton in 1792:

 

The king and queen are shown as farmers about to milk a cow, but a pair of geese has beat them to it. The farm is a far cry from the luxury of their royal digs at St. James Palace, but at least they look happy. And not a diamond in sight!

 

 

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

April in Georgian History

April 2, 1801 the HMS Elephant sank the pro-French Danish fleet in the Battle of Copenhagen thanks to Horatio Nelson deliberately disobeying orders. He famously claimed his blind eye made him unable to see the signal flags.

April 9, 1806 Isambard Kingdom Brunel born. His impact on railroads, roads, and shipping would be immense. If you’ve been to Balmoral, you’ve seen a Brunel bridge. On April 8, 1838, The Great Western, the first regular transatlantic steamship, designed by Brunel,  left Bristol for its maiden voyage.

April 19, 1775 Some pesky colonists in Lexington, Massachusettes Bay Colony fired on British troops. Outcome, Britain 1 Colonists 0.

The Steamer Great Western. H.R. Robinson. PAH8859