Stuart Stumpwork

By Prue Batten 

Embroidery – notionally and popularly a woman’s activity throughout history. Something that began as a necessity but developed to become a skill or an artform that an accomplished woman should possess.

And no time more so than the seventeenth century when raised, also called embossed work, was the fashion de jour. Called stumpwork embroidery since the nineteenth century, raised work traces its roots back to the highly padded ecclesiastic work of the fifteenth century. Gradually the three-dimensional stitching and unique subject matter of such embroidery became popular with the more affluent families of Stuart England. They needed to be affluent, because the supplies required to stitch the work (see below), were imported and pure. Nothing at all acrylic, plastic or cheap in those days.

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Stumpwork relied heavily on detached buttonhole stitch and needlelace stitch, also on wires for supporting the raised or three-dimensional appearance and on silk threads, metal purl and bead work. At the time, colours were bright, and a strict pattern was always followed.

Black outline on extant pieces of raised embroidery leads one to believe that stitchers actually worked from kits in much the same way we do today. There is evidence that embroidery pedlars would travel from wealthy house to wealthy house selling kits with scenes and subject matter tailored cleverly to those families. Wily pedlars would appeal to the vanities of the women of the house by including fashion of the times in the designs, ensuring a ready sale.

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The kits were luscious, and as mentioned, expensive. ‘Silver and gold thread, fine gimp cords from Italy, lightly twisted silks from the Continent and further afield, thick chenille threads, wools, satin ribbons, tiny brocade tassels, silk-covered purls, painted bullion, spangles, seed pearls, semi-precious stones, (floral glass, amber, turquoise) coral, tiny seashells, slivers of mother of pearl, fine kid leather, peacock plumules, wrapped and looped vellum, sheets of mica and talc and scraps of treasured fabrics.’ To me, it sounds like expansive 17th century trade all stitched up in magnificent caskets, mirrors, frames and boxes and I can almost feel my spine tingling as I read the names of the components.

I can speak from experience when I say the opening of a kit to reveal a heavenly rainbow of silk threads that lie softly but seductively in one’s hand, along with little containers of metallic thread and delicate beading is something that raises the heartbeat of an embroiderer, be they Stuart or contemporary. I can also speak from experience when I say that stumpwork is an extremely challenging artform. It takes hours of concentration to create each of the individual raised elements before one can add them to the embroidery as a whole. 

*

In the Stuart era, political causes inveigled their way into the subject matter – royalist loyalties being signified by Charles I’s caterpillars and Charles II’s butterflies, oaks and acorns. 

But as in all aspects of the arts, flower species were used to define particular emotions and perhaps even convey a message from the soul. 

And of course, when an embroiderer wanted to throw all caution to the wind, they would stitch a cornucopia of fruits, birds and animals from pattern sheets that the same wily pedlar would hawk to the house, no attention being paid to the relative size and shape of subject matter which makes for some fascinating viewing today!

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The finished piece would then be sent to a carpenter or joiner to be padded and mounted into caskets, mirror-frames, trays and chests. Many pieces exist in museums around the world, but the V&A in particular is renowned for its casket collection. The sad thing is, of course, that the colours have faded through time and so one must use one’s imagination when seeing the collections.

The artform faded from popularity in the eighteenth century when exploration began to introduce new and more fashionable modes of stitchery from across the globe. Fashions and interests changed and women moved on but fashions of stitching tend to move in circles and in the 1990’s stumpwork resurrected itself into a much sought-after form of embroidery and in all countries of the world there are many stunning examples of contemporary stitching based on those age-old techniques.

*

Stumpwork is an extremely exacting form of embroidery which requires good light, good eyes and exemplary patience. The requirements of good light and good eyesight alone make one wonder how such magnificent work was ever achieved in the candlelit domains of the seventeenth century. In current times, most embroiderers will use a magnifying light along with magnifying lenses on their glasses. In the Stuart Era not so much…

I spent a number of years under the tutelage of one of the world’s best teachers, Jane Nicholas, and learned just how difficult stumpwork can be and how testing it is for one’s eyesight and patience.

I’m still chasing the skills needed to stitch a Fritillaria Meleagris…

References:

*Nicholas J. Stumpwork Embroidery – a collection of fruit, flowers and insects for contemporary raised embroidery. Sally Milner Publishing Australia 1995

*Stinton K & Needlework, Royal College of. Stumpwork Search Press Ltd UK 2011

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A former journalist from Australia who graduated with majors in history and politics, Prue Batten is now a cross-genre writer. Several of her books, including her historical fiction novels, have been privileged to win a number of awards.

To find out more about Prue:

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Law & Order - Duties of the Constable in 17th Century England

by Deborah Swift

A Conventicle preacher brought before the Justices

The Role of the Constable
In the 17th century the responsibility for law and order fell on the community through its constables; though actually only a proportion of the community were eligible for this post – that is the householders. Tenants were not allowed to be constables. The office was usually held yearly amongst the wealthiest householders who were obliged to serve, or provide a deputy in their stead. I have read of one occasion in 1644 where in Upton, the householder turned out to be a widow. Given the often violent nature of the job, Jane Kitchin was obliged to hire a deputy. Though I have to say, I rather like the idea of a woman fulfilling this role.

Unlike later police, the position was strictly amateur, with the constable receiving no remuneration for his services, which could be both dangerous and cumbersome. However, what it did do was to promote a shared citizenship, and in the early 17th century, gave prominent householders an understanding of how the systems of ancient Manorial land ownership worked. Once a year, the constables from neighbouring parishes were sworn in at the local Justice’s office or residence by the High Constable of the County.

Their duties were primarily in disputes over land and territory, particularly with regard to tenancies, but also after the Excise Act of 1642 they were also charged with collecting tax and duty on goods. A duty was put on provisions coming into the cities from the country – on beer and cider and soap, and the next year on salt, hats, starch, and copper goods. This law was extremely unpopular, as these were not imported items from abroad, as before, but everyday necessities, and the enforcing of this law, and the collection of these monthly excise duties must have been a great burden on the elected constables.

Like doctors or vets today, the constables were constantly ‘on call’, meaning they often had to leave their dinner or their sleep to deal with the drunk and disorderly, street fights, or criminal activities.

Hue and Cry
If a murder or robbery had been committed, or a criminal had escaped, the Constable was responsible for recruiting a search party. The pay for chasing a criminal was anything from one penny to one shilling, depending on the perceived danger. The constable could call upon the villagers or townspeople for help, and anyone who refused to give chase or lend his horse to the party, was fined. The chases were known as Hue and Cry

‘given to Richard Taylor for going to Aram with a Huincri in ye night 2d’

Upton Constable's Account Book 

Hue and Cry of 'Canonbury Besse'

When the miscreant was caught, that was not the end of the constable's responsibility. If no gaol or lock-up was available, the constable had to find suitable premises and a watchman to keep the wrong-doer under lock and key.

Minor offences could be punished by a stay in the stocks, but more serious misdeameanours had to wait for the Justice at the Quarterly Assizes, known as the Quarter Sessions. Justice was a hit and miss affair, though, as the constable was often responsible for choosing the jurymen, to his own advantage in disputes.

Inside the Judge's Lodgings Museum Lancaster

Moral Guardians
Along with the churchwarden, the constable was supposed to keep an eye on the moral compass of the neighbourhood. During the Interregnum, with Cromwell in charge, staunch attacks on vice were demanded. Alehouses were restricted, various sports were banned, and the constable’s duties were to enforce all these new rules – an unenviable task, particularly since he was subject to the orders of the army Generals who were put in charge of each county district. In the period after the Civil Wars when there were many disputes over sequestrated land, (aristocrats' land seized by Parliament) the job must have required much diplomacy.

In addition there were all the new religious rules, such as fining those who did not keep Lent. Once the King was restored, a whole new raft of rules appeared, including persecution of religious dissenters such as the Quakers. A constable could call upon the trained band of soldiers to help quell a disturbance, and was resposible for enforcing that men of the parish trained in pike duty or other defensive arts as stipulated by law.

Allowed our trayne soldiers their charges when thery apprehended some Quakers in our town and conveyed them to prison 13/-

From the Upton Constable’s Account Book 1661

Taxes
The Long Parliament brought about a reform in taxation, moving away from the feudal system, and introduced a Poll Tax – no doubt extremely unpopular, and yet another difficulty for the constables to administer. The taxes were means tested, which meant constables must go door to door to assess the rate of tax – a task that was hardly going to enamour you with your neighbours. The taxes were resented because Parliament had promised that the poor would not be taxed. (sound familiar?)

Hearth Tax returns from Chaddersley Corbett, Worcestershire

Added to this already unpopular Poll Tax, the constable had to administer the Hearth Tax, introduced in 1662, where the number of chimneys had to be assessed.

There is not one old dame in ten, and search the nation through,but if you talk of chimney men will spare a curse or two

 Macauley 1662

Charity
Not only all this, but the constables were in charge of keeping the roads passable, and the bridges mended, and preventing vagrants from entering their boundaries. Vagrants were obliged to return to their place of origin, which resulted in many a poor beggar being turned away from one parish, and sent onwards to the next, spending their time sleeping in barns and calling on charity. More often than not the charity was supplied by the parish constable. No travelling was allowed on a Sunday, and canny travellers would arrive at a village on a Saturday night, knowing they would have to be accommodated there until the Monday.

'Given to a man that had been a footman to the Kinge, and who was in great want whose wiffe was with him 4d'

'Given to a souldier the 12th of May that was maimed at woster and had been under the surgon's hand 2d'

Upton Constable's record

Depending on where the sympathies of the constable lay, supporters or soldiers of the King after the end of the Civil War could be treated with kindness and respect, or they could be moved on, like common beggars.

Unpaid Civil Servant

The duties of the constable combined the duties of our police force with the duties of a charitable institution, and the constable was at the heart of the community. His house was taken over for a year as a gaol, a minor court, a meeting house, and a poor man's soup kitchen. The constable had to be a record-holder and thus was required to be literate and numerate, and thank goodness, for it is from constables' records that we know so much about the workings of the law in this period.

Sources:

Rude Forefathers: F.H West

The Gaol : Kelly Grovier

Every One A Witness - The Stuart Age: A.F.Scott


This is an Editor’s Choice from the #EHFA archives, originally published May 24, 2017.

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Deborah Swift is the author of nine historical novels as well as the Highway Trilogy for teens (and anyone young at heart!). So far, her books have been set in the 17th Century or in WW2, but she is fascinated by all periods of the past and her new novel will be set in the Renaissance. Deborah lives on the edge of the beautiful and literary English Lake District – a place made famous by the poets Wordsworth and Coleridge.

For more information of Deborah's published work, visit her Author Page. Find her historical fiction blog at her website www.deborahswift.com or follow her on twitter @swiftstory.

Hot-beds of fake news and misogyny? The rise of the Coffee Shop in 17th century London

By Kate Braithwaite

Coffee was not new to England when Pasqua Rosee opened the first London coffee shop in 1652. Coffee houses had gradually spread from the Muslim world in medieval times, finding their first European home in Venice in 1645 and from there to Oxford. But Rosee’s business in St Michael’s Alley in Cornhill, at the heart of the City of London, although probably little more than a stall initially, advertised by a sign portraying a Turk’s head, marked the beginning of an explosion of popular coffee shops across the capital.

Initially coffee shops were hailed as a positive new force in London life. Rosee claimed his brew would cure hangovers, dropsy, gout and even scurvy. Coffee shops predominantly did not sell alcohol and had at least those grounds on which to claim to be healthier than the already well-established taverns and ale houses. A penny entry fee was charged – to keep the poorer Londoners at bay – and a list of rules was displayed in many coffee houses, calling on patrons not to shout, quarrel or gamble. Smoking, on the other hand, was almost compulsory and almost all early descriptions of London coffee shops, describe a fog of pipe smoke hanging in the air. Coffee shops were the province of men only, the sole female presence, likely a woman employed as the “dame de comptoir” with the work of grinding, brewing and serving the coffee being the responsibility of coffee boys wearing long aprons. Patrons sat at long tables to talk and debate with strangers and friends, sharing news, gossip, business deals and more.

Interior of a London Coffee-house, 17th century - Attribution

The diarist Samuel Pepys makes frequent mention of Will’s Coffee House in Covent Garden, where the celebrated poet and playwright John Dryden held court. Often named after their proprietors, coffee shops quickly gathered clique-ish clientele. While literary types chose Will’s, stockbrokers were drawn to establishments near the Royal Exchange such as Jonathon’s and Garraway’s on Exchange Alley in Cornhill. Sir Isaac Newton preferred the Grecian Coffee House in Devereaux Court by the Strand, with its reputation of drawing an intellectual crowd. During the Restoration years after 1660, a time of fomenting political thought and debate, coffee shops were the perfect place for thinking men to collect their letters, read newspapers and pamphlets and share opinions and news. But they were far from popular with everyone.

In 1675, worried that coffee shops were hotbeds of plot and sedition against his rule, Charles II issued A Proclamation for the Suppression of Coffee Houses which, although it had little legal impact or effect, clearly demonstrates the concerns felt in government about the impact of Coffee Shops on London society. They were centres, the authorities believed, for the deliberate spreading of false news and anti-government sentiment. But they were also places where government spies could be placed and whispers of conspiracies and plots could be heard and acted upon. Despite Charles’ frustration, coffee shops continued to thrive but they had already attracted criticism from another part of the population – women.

The Women’s Petition against Coffee, featured here in more detail, claimed coffee made men not only anti-social and unsupportive of their families, but also impotent: “as unfruitful as the sandy deserts, from where that unhappy berry is said to be brought.” The response was swift and The Men’s Answer to the Women’s Petition was direct to a fault. After claiming that coffee rather aided men’s ability to perform under the bedcovers, its author went so far as to claim that coffee increased the chance of fertility, adding “a spiritual escency to the Sperme, and renders it more firm and suitable to the Gusto of the Womb.”

Such criticisms had no effect on the growth of the coffee shop however. In 1681 when the Thames froze from December to February and a Frost Fair was established on the ice, a central feature was Duke’s Coffee Shop a temporary building erected mid-stream. By the turn of the century it is estimated that there were at least 1000 coffee shops in London, vital to the economic and cultural life of the city.

Image: http://helencann.co.uk/

In The London Spy, published in 1703, Ned Ward gives the following colourful picture of typical establishment:

“Come, says my Friend, let us step into this Coffee-House here, as you are a Stranger in the Town, it will afford you some Diversion. Accordingly in we went, where a parcel of Muddling Muck-Worms were as busie as so many Rats in an old Cheese-Loft; some Going, some Coming, some Scribbling, some Talking, some Drinking, some Smoaking, others Jangling; and the whole Room stinking of Tobacco, like a Dutch-Scoot, or a Boatswains-Cabbin.”

Suggestions for further reading:

Life in a 17th Century Coffee Shop by David Brandon

1700, Scenes from London Life by Maureen Waller

Ned Ward, The London Spy, published 1703 text available online at  http://grubstreetproject.net/

[This is an archive Editor's Choice post originally published on EHFA 13 June 2018]

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Kate Braithwaite was born and grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland. She is the author of two historical novels set in the 17th century.  The Road to Newgate, a story of lies, love and bigotry in the time of the Popish Plot, will be published by Crooked Cat Books on July 16th. Kate and her family live in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

www.kate-braithwaite.com

mybook.to/theroadtonewgate

Equestrian Pageantry in Tudor and Stuart Times

by Margaret Porter



William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle

The basis of equestrian pageantry began with Xenophon of Athens, who first codified the movements. His treatise On Equitation (circa 400 BC) was first printed in 1512, inspiring centuries of artistic horsemanship, the origin of modern-day dressage. It was then referred to as the Art of Manège, or High School Riding. Riding academies were founded--initially in Italy and Spain. Over time the horse trainer, noble rider, choreographer, composer, and costumier united to develop a popular and exclusive entertainment. During the Renaissance, horse ballets or carrousels rose to prominence at European royal courts, eventually replacing jousting tournaments. A carrousel featured a mock battle, with group manueuvres, quadrilles, and individual feats showcasing elements of the balancing, leaping, jumping, and flying 'airs above the ground': the levade, croupade, courbette, ballotade, and capriole.

England

English royalty preferred court masques to carrousels. But everyone liked a clever horse and rider. The common people tended to prefer low comedy to balletic grace.

Marocco & William Baknes

Marocco, sometimes referred to as Bankes's horse, was the most famous dancing horse of the Renaissance. Born 1586, he was alternately described as a bay, a chestnut, or white. Petite and well-muscled, he was extremely agile, intelligent, and easily trained. His owner, William Bankes of Staffordshire, took his marvel to London. Marocco's initial performances took place in Gracechurch Street, and he was later stabled at the Belle Sauvage Inn and performed there. Marocco, who wore silver horseshoes, could dance a jig, count, play dead, walk on his back legs, and urinate on command. He could also identify which ladies in his audience were sluts, and which were virtuous. He made his bow to Queen Elizabeth I. And he bared his teeth at King Philip of Spain. John Donne and Shakespeare knew of Marocco (there's a reference in Love's Labours Lost) and almost certainly witnessed performances similar to this:

Banks perceiving, to make the people laugh, saies; 'seignior,' to his horse, 'go fetch me the veryest foole in the company.' The jade comes immediately, and with his mouth drawes Tarlton [a famous clown and comedian] forth. Tarlton with merry words, said nothing but, 'God a mercy, horse.' In the end Tarlton, seeing the people laugh so, was angry inwardly, and said: 'Sir, had I power of your horse as you have, I would doe more than that.' 'What ere it be,' said Banks, to please him, 'I will charge him to do it.' 'Then,' said Tarleton: 'charge him bring me the veriest whore-master in the company.' The horse leades his master to him. Then 'God a mercy horse indeed,' saies Tarlton. (1611)

The horse was immortalised in various verses. One example:

Bankes hath a horse of wondrous qualitie
For he can fight, and pisse, and daunce, and lie,
And finde your purse, and tell what coyne ye have:
But Bankes, who taught your horse to smell a knave?

In 1601 he performed his greatest feat, climbing the thousand steps to perform on the rooftop of St. Paul's Cathedral--the medieval one, not the Christopher Wren one with the dome. After touring England and visiting Scotland, he travelled to Europe. In Paris he caused such a sensation that Bankes was accused of sorcery, and to save himself revealed that he controlled the horse primarily through hand gestures. Marocco performed in Germany and travelled as far as Portugal. Returning to England, Bankes worked as a trainer in the royal stables during James I's reign, and also trained the Duke of Buckingham's horses.


Bankes's acquaintance Gervase Markham produced A Discourse on Horsemanship (1593), in which he writes of 'that most excellent and prayse worthie gyft, the breeding and ryding and trayning uppe of horses.' In his multi-volume Cavelarice: Or the English Horseman (1608) dedicated to Prince Henry, James I's son and containing William Bankes's secrets for training Marocco. Markham attributes human emotions to horses, stating, 'It is most certaine that everie horse is possest with these passions: love, joy, hate, sorrow and feare.' He also charts the different 'humours' during the lifetime of the horse as it matures: 'Now these tempers do alter, as the powers of a horse either increase or diminish, as thus, a Foale is said to have his temper from the Fire and Ayre, a horse of middle age from the Fire and the Earth, and a horse of the old age from the Earth and the Water.'



1st Duke of Newcastle

William Cavendish, the polymath First Duke of Newcastle was one of the great riders of his age. Margaret Cavendish, his duchess and biographer, describes the admiration his riding excited at the English court, where was responsible for the education of the future King Charles II. In that role imparted his riding skills to the then-Prince of Wales:

But not only strangers but his Majesty himself, our now gracious Sovereign, was pleased to see my Lord ride, and one time did ride himself, he being an excellent master of that art, and instructed by my Lord, who had the honour to set him first on a horse of manage when he was his governor [instructor, tutor]...his Majesty's capacity was such that being but ten years of age he would ride leaping horses and such as would overthrow others and manage them with the greatest skill and dexterity to the admiration of all that beheld him.

A firm and devoted Royalist, Newcastle spent Interregnum on the Continent. In Antwerp, where he occupied the house associated with painter Peter Paul Rubens, he established a riding school. Then, and later, he published books on horsemanship and established his famous riding-school, exercised 'the art of manège' (High School riding), and published his first work on horsemanship, Méthode et invention nouvelle de dresser les chevaux (1658). After the Restoration and his return to England, he published A New Method and Extraordinary Invention to Dress Horses and Work them according to Nature (1667).

He was not humble about his abilities and their effect upon spectators:

The Marquess of Caracena was so civilly earnest to see me ride that he was pleased to say it would be a great satisfaction to him to see me on horseback, though the horse should but walk...he came to my manage [manège] and I rid first a Spanish horse called Le Superbe, of a light bay a beautiful horse, and though hard to be rid yet when he was hit right he was the readiest horse in the world. He went in corvets forward backward sideways on both hands made the cross perfectly upon his voltoes and did change upon his voltoes, so just without breaking time that a musician could not keep time better, and went terra a terra [terre-á-terre] perfectly. The second horse I rid was another Spanish called Le Genty, and was rightly named so for he was the finest-shaped horse that ever I saw...no horse ever went terra a terra like him so just and so easy and for the piroyte [pirouette] in his length so just and so swift, that the standers by could hardly see the rider's face...truly when he had done I was so dizzy that I could hardly sit in the saddle. The third and last horse I rid then was a Barb that went...very high both forward and upon his voltoes and terra a terra. And when I had done riding, the Marquess of Caracena seemed to be very well-satisfied, and some Spaniards that were with him crossed themselves and cried 'Miraculo!'

France

Grand  Carrousel, 1662

Many English aficionados of equestrian skill were exposed to the carrousel at the French court. Antoine de Pluvinel (1555-1620), a well-born Frenchman, studied equitation and other subjects in Italy, returned to found an academy at Faubourg St. Honore. He served as chief instructor, or gouveneur, to the Dauphin, the future Louis XIII, and his precepts for riding were published in The Maneige Royal, or L'Instruction du Roy (1623), written as a dialogue between master and pupil. In 1612, Pluvinel devised a fifteen-minute carrousel celebrating the marriage of ten-year-old Louis and Anne of Austria.

Like father, like son. The 1662 Grand Carrousel at the Tuileries, performed over two days, celebrated the birth of the Dauphin, son of Louis XIV. It was a grand display of the young King's power and splendour. Louis participated, as did the royal dukes. The riders and their horses were elaborately costumed, and the characters were allegorical and representative in nature--Romans, Turks, famous warriors from history. Teams of participants, each led by a duke or the king, performed this ballet to music created by the court composer Lully. The horses' decorations alone cost one hundred thousand livres. Though not English by birth, England's Dowager Queen, Henrietta Maria, witnessed her nephew's performance.


Louis XIV in Le Grand Carrousel

Monsieur, the King's brother

In May 1686, the two-day Carrousel des Galantes Amazones was held at Versailles. All the most important people received tickets, including the English ambassador, Sir William Trumbull, and his wife. The story depicted was that of Alexander the Great (portrayed by the now adult Dauphin) and the Amazon Queen Thalestris (the Duchess of Bourbon). This was the first time ladies appeared in a carrousel, and all, men and women, were spectacularly attired in costumes by Jean Berain.

Carrousel des Amazones at Versailles, 1686

The King's Champion

After every English coronation, an elaborate banquet was served to the participants, and it included a unique and historic ceremony involving equestrian spectacle. A designated 'King's Champion' (or Queen's) mounted on a steed, rode into Westminster Hall and dared anyone to challenge the new ruler's right to succeed. For more than six hundred years members of the Dymock family held this position, although the George IV coronation in 1821 was the occasion that a Dymock was called on to perform his hereditary role, described thus in 1660:

...to have on the Coronation day one of the King's great coursers with a saddle harness and trappings of cloth of gold and one of the best suits of armour with cases of cloth of gold, and all such other things appertaining to the King's body...if he was going into mortal battel. And on the Coronation day to be mounted on the said courser ...being accompanied by the High Constable and Marshal of England and the King's Herald with a trumpet sounding before him to come riding into the Hall to the place where the King sits at dinner with the crown on his head...to proclaim with an audible voice these words following...that if any person of whatsoever degree he be, either high or low, will deny or gainsay that Charles the Second King of England Scotland France and Ireland son and next heir of our late sovereign Lord Charles the First deceased defender of the faith... ought not to enjoy the crown thereof here is his Champion ready by his body to assert and maintain that he lyes like A false traitor, and in that quarrel to adventure his life on any day that shall be assigned him. And thereupon the said Champion throws down his gauntlet, and in case no man shall say that he is ready in that quarrel to combat then as hath been usually done at all former Coronations of Kings and Queens of this realm...



James II's Champion (British Museum)

Conclusion

The famed Royal Lippizzans of Vienna's Spanish Riding School are modern equivalents of the dancing horses of centuries past, as are the Olympians in the dressage competitions in the Summer Games. Modern groups recreate versions of carrousels that were seen by Henrietta Maria, Charles II, and their kinsmen Louis XIII and Louis XIV, and French courtiers. The one I attended in Brussels is an indelible memory. A video of a similar performance is here. A section of Lully's music for the Grand Carrousel can be heard here.

This is an Editor's Choice from the #EHFA archives, originally published December 15, 2016.
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Margaret Porter is the award-winning and bestselling author of twelve period novels, whose other publication credits include nonfiction and poetry. The Carrousel des Amazones is the setting for a scene in A Pledge of Better Times, her highly acclaimed novel of 17th century courtiers Lady Diana de Vere and Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St. Albans.

Margaret studied British history in the UK and the US. As historian, her areas of speciality are social, theatrical, and garden history of the 17th and 18th centuries, royal courts, and portraiture. A former actress, she gave up the stage and screen to devote herself to fiction writing, travel, and her rose gardens.

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'All Women's Parts to be Acted by Women'

By John Pilkington

So runs a commanding phrase from one of the earliest Acts of Charles II’s reign. Following the demise of Cromwell’s short-lived Republic, 1660 saw the Restoration of the Monarchy: the return from exile of the son of the executed Charles the First. The Restoration ushered in a new, liberal era after the Puritan years - and among many changes the new King brought was the appearance of the first actresses on the English stage. Prior to that, all female roles had been taken by men and boys.
Soon after his arrival Charles gave two of his supporters, Thomas Killigrew and Sir William Davenant, royal patents to run theatres in London, their patrons being, respectively, the King himself and his brother James, Duke of York. Killigrew soon founded the King’s Company, based at first in a converted tennis court. Here, on 8th December 1660, the first actress to perform publicly stepped out: Margaret (‘Peg’) Hughes, taking the role of Desdemona in Othello. Soon afterwards, the great diarist -and keen theatre-goer - Samuel Pepys would write: ‘I to the Theatre, where was acted Beggars Bush… and here the first time that ever I saw women come upon the stage’ (3rd January 1661). In terms of theatre history, it was a revolution. Within a few years Pepys could record: ‘Tomorrow, they told us, should be acted… a new play called The Parsons Dreame, acted all by women’ (4th October 1664).

Margaret Hughes

By then, Killigrew had moved (in 1663) to a new theatre adapted from a former riding school in Brydges Street, off Drury Lane in lively Covent Garden – the burgeoning West End. The courtier Davenant, meanwhile (once rumoured to be an illegitimate son of Shakespeare, though no real evidence exists), had lost no time in founding the Duke’s Company, also in a former tennis court (Lisle’s, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields). He opened in 1661 with one of his own plays, The Siege of Rhodes, featuring the actress Mary Saunderson who the following year would marry leading actor Thomas Betterton. Davenant, who had produced plays and court masques before the Civil War, was the guiding spirit of this first wave of English actresses: eight young women he had tutored and even boarded at his house. Very soon they were an accepted - and expected - sight on the stage.

So began what we now term ‘Restoration Theatre’, often characterised by alluring costumes and witty ‘Comedies of Manners’ in which the pursuit of women was a common theme. Now, however, instead of cross-dressing boys there were real, flesh-and-blood females to take the roles. So, who were they?

To begin with they were not only talented, being expected to sing and dance as well as to act: they were strong-willed and courageous. They had to be, to survive in what was exclusively a men’s domain. Some, it must be said, took to the stage merely to attract well-to-do suitors with marriage as a goal, since many theatre-goers came from the gentry and upper classes, even the aristocracy. Others settled for becoming mistresses, this being a notoriously licentious age with men taking their example from the King himself. The most famous, of course, was Eleanor (‘Nell’) Gwyn. Nell starred alongside the actor Charles Hart in Killigrew’s first Drury Lane production, The Humorous Lieutenant. She was 14; a year earlier she had been a poor orange-seller in the theatre. Within a few years she would catch the eye of the King, go on to bear sons by him and become his most famous mistress with her own servants and a set of rooms in St James’s Park.

Nell Gwyn

The actress Mary (‘Moll’) Davis became another of Charles’ mistresses, and was set up in similar fashion. While Mary Lee, a leading tragedian with the Duke’s Company, married a baronet and became Lady Slingsby.

Moll Davis

Other actresses apart from Mary Saunderson married theatre people, like Anne Gibbs who became Mrs Shadwell, wife of the celebrated playwright Thomas. But most of them had to shift for themselves, in a precarious world with very few opportunities for women outside of marriage. The wage, for the time, was good: up to fifteen shillings a week for a regular female player - well above the wage of the working man – which gave them a degree of independence. Though this was offset by the insecurity of the profession, since the theatres might be closed at any time for a variety of reasons. The fact remains that many of the actresses were obliged, if not prepared, to use their sexuality to advance their careers. The ‘casting couch’ surely dates from this era, for all actresses were considered fair game – not only by leading actors, but also by the men (Pepys among them) who haunted the backstage areas before, during and after performances, many doubtless deserving of the soubriquet ‘Blowflies of the Tiring Room’. At least there were separate changing rooms (known as the ‘Men’s Shift’ and the ‘Women’s Shift’), as there were now seamstresses and ‘tiring-maids’ to look after the costumes, in this age of extravagant fashion.

How the women managed, in a climate of casual sex with virtually no contraception, let alone legal protection, would be a challenge to the staunchest of souls. Yet Mary Betterton forged a successful career on her own merits, and Elizabeth Barry – though given a helping hand by that famous libertine, the Earl of Rochester – gained a well-deserved reputation as a serious tragic actress. While Hester Davenport, often known as ‘Roxalana’ after her celebrated role in The Siege of Rhodes, left the stage to become the mistress of the Earl of Oxford. She was still only 20, and had been tricked into a fake marriage with the Earl. The pace of change was sometimes slow, but it was inevitable. There was even an opportunity for a woman to take a prominent role in theatre management: when Davenant died in 1668, his widow Henrietta Maria, along with two of their nine sons, took over the running of the Duke’s theatre, with the help of the forward-looking Betterton.

We should not forget that this was a vibrant theatrical scene. These new indoor theatres, with their lighting and elaborate scenery, were a far cry from the rough-and-tumble of the great Elizabethan playhouses like the Globe, the Swan and the Rose. Their day was over, and had been since the closure of the theatres on the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642. Davenant, who like the King had been impressed by theatres on the continent, where female actors already performed, introduced moveable scenery at the Duke’s: painted flats sliding into place along grooves in the stage. Killigrew soon followed the practice at the King’s. Equally important was the lighting: great candelabras hoisted above the stage, with side-lighting from candles in reflectors. It was a striking development from the open-air stages, natural daylight and minimal scenery of the pre-Civil War theatres – and it was also considerably more upmarket. In the old theatres you could stand in the yard for a penny; in the Restoration playhouses the cheapest gallery seats (there was no standing room to speak of) cost a shilling. A seat on a bench in the ‘pit’ – today’s stalls – would set you back two shillings and sixpence, a tidy sum at that time.

These theatres were also quite intimate spaces, seating around 500-800 (the old pre-war theatres had accommodated thousands). It was an excellent platform for an actor to shine and to command the stage. Usually a leading player spoke the prologue on the forestage in front of a ‘festoon’ curtain, which was then raised to open the first scene – and many of these speeches were made by actresses.

The companies of the time generally contained around 24 actors, of whom a third were women. No longer were playwrights restricted in the number of female parts they could write as they had been in earlier times, to be played by the boys in the company (never more than four). Nor had the company to rely on the singing abilities of boys whose voices had not yet broken, but could exploit the full range of mature female voices. For dancing, the looser gowns now in vogue (despite the upper-body corsets) allowed greater freedom of movement, as Pepys noted with his customary relish: ‘I was pleased to see [Elizabeth] Knipp dance among the milkmaids, and to hear her sing a song… [in] the comeliest dress that ever I saw’ (17th August 1667). And equally noteworthy was the arrival of the first female playwright, Aphra Behn, an adventurous widow who had briefly been a spy. She wrote successful plays which provided strong roles for women as well as men – with shrewd observations on the predatory behaviour of the latter.

Aphra Behn

Nowadays we are accustomed to seeing female actors feted and honoured on a par with men (even if equal pay remains an issue). The profession is no longer considered a disreputable one, or even particularly dangerous. It is easy to forget how brave those first, pioneering actresses had been back in the 1660s, and how revolutionary was their arrival.

Even if it had come about at the whim of a profligate king, it was a beginning.

Further reading:
Elizabeth Howe, The First English Actresses (1992).
John H. Wilson, All the King’s Ladies: actresses of the Restoration (1958).
Graham Hopkins, Nell Gwyn; a passionate life (2003).
Montague Summers, The Playhouse of Pepys (1964).


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John Pilkington wrote plays for radio and theatre as well as scripts for BBC television before turning to historical fiction, which soon become his lifelong passion. He has since published around twenty books, including seven in the popular series The Thomas the Falconer Mysteries, set in the late Tudor period (now republished by Sharpe Books), four in the early 17th century Marbeck spy series (Severn House) and a children’s series, the Elizabethan Mysteries (Usborne). His Restoration-era mysteries, featuring actress-turned-sleuth Betsy Brand, are now being published in revised editions by Joffe Books.

Website: www.johnpilkington.co.uk
Twitter: @_JohnPilkington

Escape!

By Michael Paul Hurd

Charles II’s Royalist army was defeated by Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army at Worcester on 3 September 1651. Following the defeat, Charles II became a fugitive for the next six weeks, before he successfully escaped to Normandy, France, on the morning of 15 October 1651. During his fugitive period, Charles II covered a circuitous 625-mile (1006 km) route from Worcester to Shoreham and were almost captured on several occasions. The route of Charles II’s escape is known as “The Monarch’s Way” and is signposted as a Public Footpath in its entirety. Charles II himself recounted the exact details of his escape to the Earl of Clarendon, Samuel Pepys (pronounced “peeps”), and his personal physician, Doctor George Bate. There were few discrepancies in the accounts recorded by each of the three men.

During his time as a fugitive, Charles II apparently gained a new appreciation for the life of the common man in England and how badly the populace had been affected by the English Civil Wars. Traveling in disguise most of the time and without a significant entourage, he relied on loyal subjects and Catholic noblemen for concealment. The subterfuge was elaborate: Charles was at times dressed as a common field hand, had his coiffure changed to match the locals, and even had what would have been the equivalent of a “dialect coach” to teach him how to speak and walk like a local laborer instead of an educated royal. At other times, he adopted an alias.

One of his most notable situations was his brief stay at Boscobel House in Shropshire, on 6 and 7 September 1651. There, Charles spent all day hiding – and even sleeping -- in a nearby oak tree while Parliamentary forces searched nearby. This tree later became known as the “Royal Oak” and a descendant of that tree still stands on Boscobel grounds. The King’s companion at the time, a Colonel Charles Careless, hid with Charles inside the oak tree and was responsible for alerting the King to imminent danger. Meanwhile, Boscobel House caretakers were detained and questioned by Parliamentary forces at the local militia headquarters but somehow managed to convince their interrogators that the King had never been on Boscobel House grounds, nor the White Ladies priory in particular.

So loyal were the Boscobel caretakers that they did not surrender Charles’s location to the Parliamentarian militia, even when reminded that there was a £1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the King and that the penalty for harboring the royal fugitive was “death without mercy.” However, the proximity of the militia to Charles’s location of concealment emphasized the importance of getting Charles out of England as quickly as possible.

Boscobel House - Image Attribution

Once again, Charles was on the move. His next exploits involved assuming the identity of a servant accompanying a woman who had a travel pass from the Parliamentarian military to visit a friend who was about to have a baby in Abbots Leigh, Somerset. Charles rode with the woman on a single horse, which threw a shoe during the journey. Because Charles had assumed the identity of a servant, it was his responsibility to take the horse to a local blacksmith; there, he engaged in a conversation with the blacksmith. In Charles’s own dictation of the escape to Samuel Pepys, he claimed to have told the blacksmith that “the rogue, Charles Stuart… deserved to be hanged more than all the rest…” Later, the King continued the ruse as a servant and was put to work in the kitchen, tending to a joint of meat roasting in the fireplace. He was inept at winding up the apparatus, and even claimed that he came from such poor beginnings that his family rarely ate meat, hence the inability to operate the roasting jack.

The exploits of the escape became even more elaborate over the next couple of weeks. His loyal accomplices tried to locate available ships to depart from Bristol; there were none available for at least the next month. Finding a hiding place in Trent while two Royalist officers tried to find a ship to sail from Lyme Regis or Weymouth, Charles himself witnessed a celebration by the local villagers who believed that he had been killed at Worcester. No one had recognized him. He later traveled with Juliana Coningsby, a niece of Lady Wyndham (who was the wife of accomplice Colonel Wyndham), pretending to be an eloping couple. They reached the market town of Bridport but found that the town was filled with Parliamentary troops. Charles boldly walked through the town to the best inn and arranged for rooms. He was almost recognized at the inn, but deflected and convinced the ostler that they had been servants together in the employ of a Mr. Potter in Exeter.

After the encounters in Bridport, the escape became much more complicated, but eventually Charles and his longtime traveling companion, Lord Wilmot, reached Brighthelmstone (now known as Brighton). There, the King was recognized by a former servant of the royal household under Charles I. This recognition was immediately problematic for the King; the captain of the vessel that was to transport him and Wilmot to France demanded an additional £200 as “danger money” before he would set sail. On the morning of 15 October 1651, Charles and Wilmot boarded the “Surprise”, sailing at the next high tide, around 7 a.m. A mere two hours later, Parliamentarian cavalry arrived in the village of Shoreham with orders to arrest the King.

Lord Wilmot

The previous narrative is an extreme oversimplification of Charles II’s escape to France. However, throughout the journey, Charles II repeatedly crossed paths with commoners and even assumed the identities of common servants; this is believed to have given him a thorough appreciation for their plight. When he returned to England nine years later at the request of Parliament following the death of Richard Cromwell, England was in political turmoil and the religiously divided House of Commons welcomed the Declaration of Breda in mid-1660. In this declaration, Charles II promised tolerance and liberty. He even promised not to exile past enemies nor confiscate their wealth.

Some historians have characterized Charles II as a popular King and a legendary celebrity in British history. Others have cited his ineptitude and poor judgment as contributing to a series of poorly prosecuted wars in the latter half of the 17th Century. Regardless of the bifurcated opinions, Charles II managed to guide Great Britain out of a period of extended political turmoil and towards the evolution into a constitutional monarchy under the Bill of Rights (1689) and the Acts of Settlement (1701).  These documents actually formed the basis for the United States Constitution, ratified approximately 100 years later.

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Michael Paul Hurd retired from full-time employment in 2018 and began writing his first historical fiction novel in August of that year. His “Lineage Series” of novels projects the touchpoints of his family onto events in history on both sides of the Atlantic. Genealogical research indicated that he is a distant relative of Jane Giffard, wife of Sir John Giffard, MP (1466-1556) and their line, which at one time owned Boscobel House. Married to his wife, Sandy (daughter of a British emigrant to the United States), for nearly 40 years, he spent over a decade working in the United Kingdom, from 1983-1994. There he took an interest in British history, studying under Dr. Sid Brown of Leeds University. Fourteen novels are planned for Hurd’s “Lineage Series,” several of which will involve topics relevant to British history as they evolve out of the vignettes of the first book in the series. 

Connect:

https://lineage-publishing.com/

Buy:

https://amazon.com/author/hurdm

The Coffee Houses of Queen Anne’s London

By David Fairer

By the turn of the eighteenth century the coffee houses of London had become the great meeting-places of the capital – for relaxation and for stimulation. Whether your drink of choice was coffee, chocolate, or expensive tea, it was here you met with your friends and encountered strangers; where you could exercise your wit, pick up the latest news, sound forth your political opinions, and hear the latest spicy gossip as it did the rounds. Some characters (like Medley in Etherege’s The Man of Mode) were news bulletins in themselves, circulating scandal as a currency – one that gained value in the telling – perhaps to crash by tomorrow.

Jacob Spon’s frontispiece to his tract on coffee, tea, and chocolate (Paris, 1685). The three contrasting figures reflect the far-flung origins of the drinks: Turkey (coffee), China (tea), and Spanish America (chocolate).

A French traveller found London’s coffee houses remarkable: “You have all manner of news there: you have a good fire, which you may sit by as long as you please; you have a dish of coffee; you meet your friends for the transaction of business – and all for a penny, if you don’t care to spend more.” (Henri Misson, 1717).

Coffee houses had their individual character, and this might change over the course of a day. Early in the morning the news-mongers circulated, spreading and exchanging the overnight intelligence; later, well-informed gentlemen might stroll in and put matters right; by afternoon the atmosphere was perhaps one of after-dinner reflection; then the place would ready itself for the arrival of the wits and the theatrical crowd primed for the adventures of the evening; and by nine the critics might reappear with their judgments on the new play at the Theatre Royal.

First established in London during the Commonwealth, after the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 the coffee houses seem to have gained a reputation for seditious conversation – places that might attract the disaffected. In December 1675 King Charles II issued a proclamation in the London Gazette to suppress all coffee houses as being the haunts of “Idle and disaffected persons” who were spreading “malicious and scandalous reports to the defamation of His Majesties Government . . . speaking evil of things they understand not.” From the following week it would be forbidden for anyone “to keep any publick Coffeehouse, or to utter or sell any Coffee, Chocolet, Sherbett or Tea, or they will answer the contrary at their utmost Perils.” It was a Draconian move against an institution that was becoming popular, and needless to say, this attempt to end what was proving to be a profitable trade for merchants and proprietors alike, was doomed. After a huge outcry the threat was withdrawn.* (*https://www.thegazette.co.uk/all-notices/content/100707).

By the reign of Charles’s niece, Queen Anne (1702-14), the coffee houses – and their slightly more upmarket cousins the chocolate houses – could be numbered in their hundreds, and they had established themselves as relatively respectable places of resort. Of course, seditious sentiments might still be uttered, and quarrels over politics were liable to break out at any time. The following picture suggests what a lively and disputatious place a London coffee house of the period might be, with the bewigged clientele coming to blows:

‘The Coffee-House Mob, or, Debates Pro, and Con, on the Times’. Frontispiece to Ned Ward, The Fourth Part of Vulgus Britannicus: or, The British Hudibras (1710).

But coffee houses were generally clubbable places, resorts of conversation, grumbling, rumour, wit, scandal, and intellectual and political debate. There was something to suit every taste:

The gentle Beau too, joins in wise debate,
Adjusts his cravat, and reforms the State.
[The Tripe Club. A Satyr (1706)]

One establishment might offer conversations in Latin, another attract projectors and men of science, another one be the resort of members of the clergy in town on church business. But you had to be careful – a confirmed Whig would no sooner think of frequenting the high Tory Cocoa-Tree in Pall Mall, than a Jacobitical Tory would settle himself at Will’s in Covent Garden at the corner of Russell Street and Bow Street.

Each establishment had its own character, and there was all the variety you could wish for. White’s Chocolate House on St James’s Street was a more aristocratic haunt notorious for the ‘deep play’ of hazard, a dicing game at which huge fortunes were made or lost in a single evening, and when the shirt on your back could be the final desperate stake.

The social mix was considerable, but in one important way they were exclusive. Unlike the many taverns and alehouses of the capital, London coffee houses were closed to women. A fair number of them, however, were run by widows. Lillywhite’s compendium lists nineteen of them, including those presided over by Widow Turnbull, Widow Nixon, Widow Lloyd, and Widow Vernon – who in 1713 carried on her business in Fleet Street after the death of her husband. This situation was probably quite common – and it made a widow well set up in business an attractive marriage prospect.

We can see from the following illustration what an imposing figure the chatelaine of a coffee house would cut with her tall tiara and ample gown:

A London coffee house c. 1705

The coffee boy, dressed in his smart livery, was proud of his ability to pour out the coffee in an elegant way – like the young man in the above plate. The few pictures of coffee-boys all show them lifting the pot as high as they can manage and delivering an elegant stream of liquid into the earthenware bowl (china cups with handles had not yet established themselves).

On entering, the customer deposited his penny at the bar, and was expected to seat himself with the other gentlemen. You didn’t go into a coffee house to sit alone and keep your own company. And at these so-called ‘penny universities’, newspapers, books and pamphlets were available, and some of them had their own libraries. They could be venues for auctions, lottery ticket sales, with projectors making their pitch. Business could be transacted, especially in the flourishing coffee houses in Exchange Alley, off Cheapside in the City. The most famous of these were Jonathan‘s, Garraway’s, and Lloyds – which specialised in the latest shipping news. Entering Jonathan’s you would be met with a crowd of stock-jobbers crying their wares, and could hear the price of stocks rise and fall as the deals were made all round you. When the Royal Exchange was closed to share-dealing, the trade simply moved into the warren of streets on the other side of the road, packed with brokers, bankers, and the new trade of insurance.

In contrast to the busy financial dealings in Exchange Alley, at Will’s in Covent Garden the brightest and best in the literary world gathered. In this place where the great Dryden had once held court, aspiring writers formed a coterie in the company of Addison, Swift, Wycherley, Ambrose Philips, John Dennis, and John Gay. Here, as in other coffee houses which aspired to a literary character, a young man’s reputation could be made with a witty epigram or a finely turned pastoral. It was at Will’s that the teenage Alexander Pope made friends with Swift, and brought himself to the notice of influential patrons.

Such coffee-houses had libraries that lent out books, and on the tables, beside the newspapers, would be scattered controversial pamphlets, tedious sermons, or satirical squibs. An aspiring poet might tour the coffee houses and leave behind manuscript copies of his latest inspiration, hoping they would be noticed by the cultural influencers of the day. If he was especially lucky, his piece might find its way into The Tatler, the influential periodical begun by Richard Steele in 1709. This thrice-weekly paper offered regular reports from four carefully chosen coffee houses. As Steele explained in the first number, “All accounts of Gallantry, Pleasure, and Entertainment, shall be under the article of White’s Chocolate House; Poetry, under that of Will’s Coffee House; Learning under the title of the Grecian; and Foreign and Domestick News you will have from St James’s Coffee House.” From those four appropriate outposts, the magazine’s persona, ‘Isaac Bickerstaff’, was able to cover the cultural field – much like the Sunday supplements do today.

Part of the joy of a coffee house was its clientele, and a newcomer might encounter a wide range of characters. In Ned Ward’s series, The Weekly Comedy: Or, the Humours of a Coffee-House (1707), his readers were offered a succession of comic scenes that featured a miscellany of characters, including Hazard (a gamester), Blunt (a plain dealer), Bite (a sharper), Nice (a beau), Whim (a projector), Trick (a Lawyer), Froth (a punster), Bays (a poet), Harlem (a news-writer), and Guzzle (a hard drinker) – a group described by Ward a “Knaves of all Trades, and Fools in Ev’ry Art.” In Ward’s typically dyspeptic words, the coffee houses were full of “a buzzing breed, / That o’er their Coffee tattle, smoke, and read.”

But these places were not just for drinking and talking. Wagers would be taken on the news – men would talk about their trades, their latest reading, pass judgment on new play, speculate on the news from Europe – the triumphs and reverses when Britain was involved in a long continental war. The coffee houses of Queen Anne’s London fed the capital’s insatiable desire for news and sociability. At a time when ‘the World’ was merely five miles across and could be walked in a couple of hours, people sensed that everything was within reach. So much was happening around you that you really ought to know about it, and the coffee houses acted as a busy exchange. Here is Lewis Theobald writing about his daily routine in The Censor, no. 61 (12 March 1717):

“As I am obliged, in order to see how the world runs, and gather observations on the humours of mankind . . . I constantly appear once a Day at the Coffee-houses in vogue, and where I expect to meet with the most matter for speculation. Were it not for these diurnal circulations, and the minutes which I take from what occurs there, I might find myself sometimes at a loss for subjects  . . . I [put] on an air of inadvertence, and glean up the scatter’d papers from every table . . . being seated, and like a profound politician, with my coffee half cold, seeming to nod o’er the respective interests of Europe . . . I have often sat with pleasure to hear the Nation settled, and the Wits arraign’d; and amuse myself with the variety of conversation, which is bandied by every distinct knot of talkers. I have heard a country Squire over his pipe at one corner, sputtering about the age and strength of his October [a strong beer] and recommending the house-wifery of his daughter Penelope. At another, a company of sparks praising the beauty of a bar-keeper. A third clan would be canvassing the sermons and conduct of their parson . . . These disjointed topicks of conversation [are] played off at one time and in the self-same place . . .”

In this world, variety was a stimulus. These sociable spaces offered an unpredictable mixture of entertainment and challenge, knowledge and opportunity, escape and refreshment. The world was surely a better place for these busy harbours of the mind.

Some reading:

[Anon.], The Character of a Coffee-House. Wherein is contained a Description of the Persons usually frequenting it, with their Discourse and Humors (1665)

Ned Ward, The Weekly Comedy, as it is Dayly Acted at most Coffee-Houses in London (1699; reworked and republished as The Humours of a Coffee-House, 1707)

Henri Misson, Memoirs and Observations in his Travels over England (1719)

John Ashton, Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne (1929)

Aytoun Ellis, The Penny Universities: A History of the Coffee-Houses (1956)

Bryant Lillywhite, London Coffee Houses (1963)

Markman Ellis, The Coffee House: A Cultural History (2004)

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David Fairer was born in Kingston-Upon-Hull, Yorkshire. After studying in Oxford for ten years, he took up a lectureship at the University of Leeds in 1976, and since 1999 has been Professor of 18th Century English Literature (Emeritus 2018). He has written widely on the period. Some of his books include Pope’s Imagination (1984), English Poetry of the Eighteenth Century (2004), and Organising Poetry: The Coleridge Circle (2009). Chocolate House Treason (2019) is his fictional début – “not before time!” he says.

Chocolate House Treason is the first in a projected series of whodunits set in the London of Queen Anne during the uneasy months following the Act of Union (1707) when the new nation of ‘Great Britain’ came into being. 

The book is published by Troubador Publishing Ltd:

https://www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/historical/chocolate-house-treason/

For some more background information, see the Chocolate House Mysteries website: https://davidfairer.com/