In Search of Northanger Abbey: Farleigh Hungerford Castle

By Nancy Bilyeau

Jane Austen is revered for the characters she created, for her wit, and for how she fuses an acerbic, unblinking view of human nature with deep stores of empathy.  I believe that, among her arsenal of gifts, also lies a talent for writing "place." Austen mixed descriptions of her most iconic creations—Pemberley, Mansfield Park, Kellynch Hall—with those of "real" places she visited and knew well, from London's West End to Lyme Regis to Bath.

When it comes to Northanger Abbey, that talent is on full display. As in Persuasion, Austen brings Bath vividly to life. She also creates an imposing country house in Northanger Abbey, the manor house of the Tilney family located in Gloucestershire.

When reading the novel closely — and writing my sequel, The Heiress of Northanger Abbey — I admired the evocative, if not precise, description of Northanger Abbey, a product of Austen's imagination. The novel tells us it was once an abbey for nuns. Based on the usual trajectory, we can assume that, after Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries, the abbey was closed to religious life. Maybe the nuns received adequate pensions, or perhaps they starved. But as for the building itself, it's logical to think it was sold to a courtier friendly to King Henry or Thomas Cromwell.  

In Austen's novel, the Tilney family did not enter into it until much later, perhaps two centuries later. In the early18th century, a Tilney purchased the manor house and modernized it: Northanger Abbey was a massive quadrangle that retains its Gothic arches and heavy stone walls. But in the story, General Tilney, the family patriarch, is proud of the "modern" kitchen he installed. The house also features smooth parquet floors, modern sash windows, elegant carpets, and "Rumford" fireplaces, invented in the 1790s. The house has a modern "bell system," General Tilney's pride and joy.

So we know that Northanger Abbey has been made comfortable and stylish in line with Regency ideals.

What a disappointment for Catherine Morland, the novel's heroine! She was thrilled to receive an invitation to Northanger Abbey, not only because it's the home of Henry Tilney, whom she is falling in love with, but because abbeys are supposed to be spooky ruins, filled with dark, dusty corridors, secret passageways, and cobwebs. This belief supposedly stems from Catherine's passion for Gothic literature.

I'd like to pause here and say that Catherine Morland is not the only one who lets her Gothic imagination run away with her. Here are four different book covers of Northanger Abbey, two of which seem to be fairly accurate renditions of the house in the novel; one is more like Dracula's castle, hanging off a cliff; and one is such a fragile ruin that nobody could spend the night there, much less live there!

But to the point of this column, I was curious about why Catherine is so convinced that Northanger Abbey will be a shabby ruin and a place filled with frightening and dangerous possibilities. The other characters attribute it to her fixation on Gothic novels. When Jane Austen wrote this novel, Sir Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto and Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho were popular, along with many imitators. But in those books, the castles are in Europe, and the stories are from the past. Catherine is seventeen and naive, but would she really expect Northanger Abbey to resemble an Italian castle from centuries ago, as described in a clearly fictional tale?

I wondered whether this belief was more common in the 1790s, when Northanger Abbey was written, than we might assume. Did people in the Regency have ideas similar to Catherine Morland's about English castle ruins and former abbeys as repositories of fear and violence, independent of fashionable Gothic fiction? 

I believe the answer is yes, and one such place that may have inspired the darker possibilities of an old castle or abbey is Farleigh Hungerford Castle.

"A Place of Solemn and Romantic Solitude"

Farleigh Hungerford Castle is today a ruin on a hillside, overlooking the rolling Somerset countryside. Owned by English Heritage, it is a much-visited site. Parts of the complex remain roofed and structurally intact, though no one has lived there for centuries, apart from the Priest’s House in the Outer Court, which was repurposed into a tenant farmhouse and was continuously occupied by farm managers into the mid-20th century.

Eastern gatehouse of Farleigh Hungerford Castle. Source: Wikipedia.

The original property was a manor house built before the Norman Conquest, as William the Conqueror gave it to a Norman "companion," Roger de Courcelles, in the 11th century. It passed between various owners until the Hungerford family took over in the 14th century and built a massive quadrangle castle on the site.

I knew of the Hungerfords because, while writing my Joanna Stafford trilogy set in Tudor England, I stumbled upon the bizarre life of Sir Walter Hungerford in my research. It's little known that Cromwell did not die alone--he was executed on Tower Hill after Hungerford, convicted of "high treason, sorcery, and buggery." 

Sir Walter Hungerford seems to have gone insane while imprisoned in the Tower of London, much like Jane Boleyn did two years later. An observer said that on execution day Hungerford "seemed so unquiet that many judged him rather in a frenzy than otherwise." In fact, one report says that Cromwell tried to steady Hungerford, saying, "There is no cause for you to fear. If you repent and be heartily sorry for what you have done, there is for you mercy enough for the Lord, who for Christ's sake will forgive you. Therefore be not dismayed, and though the breakfast we are going to be sharp, yet, trusting in the mercy of the Lord, we shall have a joyous dinner."

What gives Hungerford even more fame than his death — and provides fodder for stories told centuries later — is his treatment of his wives. James Tunstall, in a 19th-century guidebook, identified Hungerford as “something of a Bluebeard.” Three wives in succession complained of his cruel treatment. He imprisoned his third wife, Elizabeth, in the castle for nearly four years and frequently attempted to poison her. She is said to have survived only by drinking her own urine and eating food secretly supplied by local women.

After Cromwell's arrest, among all the letters found was one by Elizabeth accusing Lord Hungerford:

"Here I have been for three or four years past, without comfort of any creature, and under custody of my lord's chaplain, which hath once or twice poisoned me, as he will not deny under examination. He hath promised my lord that he 'would soon rid him of me,' and I am sure he intendeth to keep his promise."

(In case you're wondering, Elizabeth Hungerford survived her husband and remarried.)

The Hungerfords held Farleigh Hungerford Castle for another century, though the family remained problematic. According to the English Heritage site for the castle, Sir Edward Hungerford was known as "the Spendthrift," legendary both for his extravagance – allegedly paying 500 guineas for a wig – and for his debts. He sold the castle in 1686 to the Baynton family, who lived there until about 1702.

A watercolor sketch of the castle from the early 18th century

The once-proud medieval stronghold was sold for salvage in 1705. Over the following decades, the castle was systematically plundered for its materials and fittings.

In the 18th century, as it continued to fall apart, Farleigh Hungerford Castle became a popular place to visit. It was seen as noteworthy for “its antiquity, its importance, and the beautiful romantic scenery with which it is encompassed."

John Collinson, in The History and Antiquities of the County of Somerset, published in 1791, wrote:

"The remains of this castle stand in one of the most rural and picturesque spots within a wide radius of Bath... [The site] displays a scene of fallen grandeur, where overgrown towers and ivy-bound walls awaken the mingled sentiments of pleasure and melancholy."

Did Jane Austen Visit the Castle?

The key to this question is Collinson's writing that Farleigh Hungerford stood "within a wide radius of Bath." It was seven miles away. Jane Austen lived in Bath during two periods of her life. According to Professor Janine Barchas,  "Farleigh (or Farley) Hungerford Castle features prominently in a Bath guidebook owned by the Austen family."

So we have no proof of an Austen visit, but it seems very possible, even likely. If she and her family had gone day-tripping, they would have heard the story of the "Lady Tower," where Lady Elizabeth was said to have been confined by her husband.

The Lady Tower, where Elizabeth Hungerford was allegedly kept prisoner

In the plot of Northanger Abbey, Catherine Morland becomes fixated on stories about the dead mother of Henry Tilney. Her rooms in the abbey are kept separate, and Eleanor, Henry's sister, is very upset that her mother died while she was away. Catherine begins to wonder if there is something cruel about General Tilney, the dominating father of the family, and whether his wife was confined to her room or even if she died of natural causes.

Catherine cannot resist exploring the dead mother's room. While snooping, she is caught by a surprised Henry Tilney. She eventually explains that she feared his father "had not been very fond of" the late Mrs. Tilney.

Henry scolds her for her suspicions. The death was of a "malady," and the General's "value of her was sincere."

Embarrassed, Catherine flees the room in tears.

However, and Austen scholars find this interesting, Henry does tell Catherine that his mother "had much to bear" from General Tilney. And Catherine herself is mistreated when the General, who mistakenly thinks she is an heiress, orders her put out of the house when he discovers she is not.

Is General Tilney a "Bluebeard" guilty of imprisoning wives in his crumbling castle and trying to poison at least one? No. But he is not an admirable man either. 

These complexities are part of what makes Northanger Abbey, and Jane Austen's other novels, so cherished.

This is the first part in a series of articles I am writing about the inspiration for Northanger Abbey, the place.

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Learn more:

The Real Bluebeard of Bath:A Historical Model for Northanger Abbey, written by Professor Janine Barchas

The Thing About Austen podcast: General Tilney's bell system and other Northanger episodes

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The Heiress of Northanger Abbey will be published on September 1st in paperback, hardcover, and ebook. Real Simple magazine put the novel on its list of "Perfect Fall Reads," saying, “You’ll get a touch of that Austen spirit, with a Gothic mystery mixed in.”

"A thrilling mystery for everyone who wishes the Abbey really did have deep Gothic secrets--including some more dangerous than Catherine Morland ever dreamed!" -- Claudia Gray, NYT bestselling author of the Mr. Darcy and Miss Tilney series

To learn more, go to Nancy Bilyeau's website.

Entailment in English Inheritance Laws during the Regency Era

By Josi Kilpack

Rosings Park in Pride and Prejudice 1995 

Have you ever found yourself looking sideways at a plot element in an historical fiction novel or period drama movie or television show and wondered—but why? Why did Mr. John Dashwood kick out his stepmother and half-sisters after their father Henry Dashwood died in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility? Why would Anne de Bourgh inherit Rosings Park after her mother dies, and why wouldn’t Mrs. Bennet inherit Longbourn, thus securing a living for her and her daughters in Pride and Prejudice?

Jane Austen uses English inheritance laws as a plot element in many of her novels. It can be very confusing to the modern reader. Entailments feature prominently. The word gets batted around often enough that it is easy to believe that all estates are entailed, all entailments are bad, and the English inheritance laws hate women. I’m not a historian or an expert, but I have researched this and believe I’ve got it right. If I didn’t, please let me know if the comments.

What an Entailment is:

An entailment is essentially a clause in a will that extended beyond the life of the person who made the will. The clause, therefore, survives the grantor of the entailment for a certain number of generations. Usually, three or four. So Bob Sr. draws up his will with an entailment that settles the estate he’s worked so hard to build on the next male heir for four generations, which means Bob Jr. becomes the automatic owner when Bob Sr. dies, Bob III becomes the automatic owner when Bob Jr. dies, and Bob IV becomes the automatic owner when Bob III dies. When Bob IV inherits, the entailment is satisfied. He can do whatever he wants with it—divide it, sell it, turn it into a killer skate park, and leave it to whoever he wants to.

Sounds terribly controlling to make such a big decision for four generations of Bob’s, right? But there is method to the madness and there are legal remedies. The purpose of entailments was not to be egomaniacs (well, for most people that wasn’t the purpose) it was to assure that estates were not broken up, which divided the necessary income to sustain the houses and buildings. Keeping estates intact also assured those making the entailments that the status of their family line would remain strong. Land was power—still is—and it can’t be too hard on the man for looking at the twelve-year-old heir apparent and thinking “I have to protect him from himself.” Creating an entailment that didn’t let an owner ruin everything prior generations had built ensured that the status and wealth could continue.

Entailments were also not only reserved for the first-born son, or a son at all. If someone owned property not bound by an existing entailment, they could entail it on whoever they wanted. The second born son, the youngest son, the eldest daughter. The entailment usually ran with a position in the family, but there was no restriction on what position and what gender that position had to be in order to receive the entailed property. That we see it so often entailed on the oldest son was due mostly to the cultural adherence to primogeniture—first born sons inheriting, which is based upon inheritance laws that the courts used to determine who inherited if someone died without a will. This type of inheritance law still exists for intestate persons in most developed countries, though in most developed countries it would be equally split between all children (I think.)

David Bamber as the odious Mr Collins in the television series of Pride
and Prejudice (1995). Because of the entailment of Mr Bennet's estate,
he is the heir to Longbourn, not his wife and daughters

It was also possible to break an entailment. Let’s say that Bob Jr. thinks this whole entailment thing is a bad deal—it’s not fair that “his” property has already been decided for him. He can’t sell it, he can’t divide it, he’s limited in the way he uses it all because Dad made these decisions. He can break the entailment by getting Bob III—the next generation of direct male heir entitled to the entailment—to agree with him and together they can submit affidavits or something of the sort saying they want the entail broken. If Bob III goes along with this, he will be forgoing his inheritance of the land and allowing Bob Jr. to make his own decisions. This is a little risky for Bob III. Maybe Bob Jr. is a drunk, maybe he’s a gambler. Surely they make some decision so that Bob III isn’t cut out—otherwise why would Bob III go along with breaking the entailment at all—but if Bob Jr. in some way messes things up, Bob III could end up with nothing. 

In the case of Mr. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, Longbourn was entailed on the next male heir in line to receive—probably the first born. Mr. Bennet only had daughters, which meant there was no direct heir—heir apparent—for the entailment to pass to. The entailment then went sideways in the family tree to the next male heir, a cousin of Mr. Bennet, Mr. Collins who is the lucky guy. The option of getting Mr. Collins to break the entailment is not available because an entailment can only be broken by the heir apparent and Mr. Collins is the heir presumptive—presumptive because there is still a chance that should Mrs. Bennet die, Mr. Bennet could sire a son with his next wife who would then be a direct heir to Mr. Bennet and the entailment would settle on him. Until Mr. Bennet’s death there is still a chance for an heir apparent. The entailment, therefore, can’t be broken by a “possible” heir. Mr. Collins will inherit, leaving Mrs. Bennet and the five Miss Bennets without financial security.

What an Entailment is not:

Infinite. The grantor determines a number of generations, but it can’t go on forever. Back to our Bobs—Bob IV would have been the last to receive the entailed property. He could then decide if he wanted to create a new entailment or take the chance of the estate being broken up by future generations. He’s going to spend his life taking care of it—does he want to risk the chance of Bob V undoing it?

Entailments were not the only way a person inherited. People could will things however they wanted. Entailments were usually reserved for large estates and plenty of inheritances had nothing to do with entailments. If a person in an entailed position purchased additional lands or houses or whatever, those items would be outside of the entailment and he could leave them to whomever he wished however he wished to.

Maggie Smith as Lady Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham
in the television series Downton Abbey (2010-2015). The first season revolved around
her desire to break the entailment set up by previous generations of the Crawley family
so that her granddaughter Lady Mary Crawley could inherit the estate.

A men’s only club?:

So, then, how does it work out for women? Women could have entailments settled on them as well—Lady Catherine de Bourgh from Pride and Prejudice and Mrs. Ferrars in Sense and Sensibility were probably recipients of entailments—one way or another they both controlled their own fortunes out right. Things got tricky, however, when a woman married because anything she owned would legally become her husband’s on marriage. This was viewed as a process of simplification for a government who viewed a married couple as one legal person. The reason women didn’t have the right to vote during this time was because it was assumed that the husband and wife would agree on an issue and therefore the husband’s vote represented them both. Granted, there were a lot of people talking about women having smaller brains and less capacity that makes us struggle to give the benefit of the doubt on this issue, but this was the law’s defense.

Women were also not always left out in the cold when their husband died and the entailed heir took possession. Most men created a settlement for their wife when they married as part of the marriage contract for this exact reason, often investing a portion of his wife’s dowry to ensure she was cared for in case of his death. Mr. Bennet explains that he should have done this, and he didn’t because he assumed, he would have a male heir. It was lazy and irresponsible on his part but made for a good plot devise. A husband could also create a jointure at any point in his marriage, which was money set aside to provide for his wife upon her death—this money could not be part of the entailment, however.

The defense on the male-centric trickle down of wealth during the Regency era was the same defense that had been reflected in most societies over time—men would take care of women. And most of them did. But when they didn’t, the cultural limitations on women put them in a very disadvantaged position. A woman could not vote, so she could not vote for any candidate who might champion her cause politically. She could not hold office, which meant the positions were always held by men and voted in by men—women’s rights were likely not very high on their list of concerns in need of being addressed.

A widow could inherit from her husband if he chose for her to be the beneficiary. She could also tie up her property in what was called a separate estate before marriage which appointed a trustee to manage her holdings so that her husband couldn’t get it. This sort of arrangement did not happen often, and certain factors would have to line up just right for it to work, but it did happen. Many estates had “Dowager Cottages” which was a house set up for the widow to live in for the rest of her life. The Dowager Lady Grantham from Downton Abby lived in the Dowager House after her husband’s death. Sons commonly did look after their mother and sisters after they inherited which caused little change in living situations and secured women’s futures for them.

Am I grateful that inheritance laws provide for equality these days? Absolutely, but it was somewhat of a relief to understand that the reasons behind the inequality of the Regency era wasn’t “necessarily” due to meanness, it was cultural ideals translated into law that usually worked for the good of everyone.

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Josi S. Kilpack is the bestselling author of several Proper Romance and Proper Romance Historical series and a Cozy Culinary Mystery series. Her new Regency romance novel, Rakes and Roses, was published by Shadow Mountain Press on May 05, 2020.  A Heart Revealed and Lord Fenton's Folly were Publishers Weekly Best Romance Books of the Year. She and her husband, Lee, are the parents of four children.
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AMAZON

Sea Bathing in the Regency Era

By Megan Walker

Regency era physicians had unique ways of treating various ailments and physical conditions in addition to prescribing herbal remedies and routine care such as exercise, nutrition, etc. Sea bathing is one such treatment prescribed by eighteenth century physicians who believed the water, even the cold temperature of the sea, could be a remedy for certain ailments. Because of this new interest in the medicinal properties of seawater, attitudes about the sea shifted from those of fear and uncertainty to excitement and enthusiasm.

Bathing at Bridlington, Yorkshire

Eighteenth century physicians also prescribed drinking seawater, sometimes mixed with honey or sugar, to their patients in addition to bathing in the sea. This fact is proven in an excerpt from an article published in The Atlantic entitled, The Historic Healing Power of the Beach: "In 1750 Dr. Richard Russell published a treatise, A Dissertation on the Use of Seawater in the Diseases of the Glands, Particularly, the Scurvy, Jaundice, King’s Evil, Leprosy and the Glandular Consumption, in which he advocated using seawater for bathing and drinking. In one case, Russell describes a man suffering from leprosy; a “most troublesome case.” The patient’s head and entire body was “sprinkled over with leprous spots.” But after being prescribed to “drink a pint of sea water every morning during nine months, without any intervals” the patient recovered. The regimens also usually involved bathing in seawater to strengthen and invigorate the body. As seawater drinking became more popular, these kinds of case studies proliferated. The miracle of the sea seemed to provide infinite therapies."

Though there were many sea towns on the coasts of England, the first of which is thought to be a resort in Scarborough, in Yorkshire. I mainly researched Brighton, a fascinating town with a history of the Royal Pavilion and plenty of tourism. While people of various ailments, including the Prince Regent himself, flocked to the sea for whatever medicinal benefits they believed they'd receive, later, many people came simply for the enjoyment of bathing or dipping in the sea.

Sea Bathing at Scarborough

In order to experience the waters fully, men and women often, if not most of the time, attended separate or opposite ends of beaches for the purpose of maintaining privacy and modesty, since some bathed naked. Careful distance was always rendered in the event that this was not the case. "Bathing" doesn't necessarily mean swimming, though we know from paintings and depictions that both men and women in some respects seemed to know how to swim well. An attendant was always nearby to help the person into the water, and would stay with them if needed. Oftentimes bathing in the sea meant a quick, cold dip in the waters, even in freezing temperatures. Jane Austen's cousin said in a letter to her, "I still continue bathing notwithstanding the severity of the Weather & Frost & Snow which is I think somewhat courageous."

Men’s wardrobes while sea bathing were less of a special event, as many did not require anything new or noteworthy, oftentimes bathing in the nude. Women, on the other hand, often wore flannel dresses, even sometimes with weights sewn into the hems of their skirts so as to keep them from floating up, but some women also enjoyed a private nude dip as well. Some women even had special hairstyles and commissioned dresses that were adorned with frills and lace instead of the typical blue costume many wore.

The new BBC drama Sanditon depicts well what a typical bathing experience would look like. A small wheeled carriage house called a bathing machine would be driven out into the water with person or persons inside. Once changed or unrobed in the tight little room, attendants would be waiting. The person would be assisted down into the waters, or a brave person might jump right on in if they were experienced. How long someone bathed was, as far as I found, entirely up to them. These same practices that were used in sea towns were also used out in the country in lakes or ponds for families and friends. The question of how many people actually knew how to float or swim, especially women, is debated, though it seems likely that more men than women took up the sport.

What little we know about sea bathing comes from paintings, drawings, diaries and other writings. Though the sea was first feared, medicinal beliefs changed the minds of many who saw the waters as a miraculous experience, and even further an enjoyable time. Were the waters of Brighton healing for the people and physicians who believed? As much as there are different people in the world, there are different opinions. Some people believed firmly in the healing powers of sea water. Others thought it a foolish notion. Even Jane Austen had her doubts.

Jane Austen's cousin letter can be found in this article: https://www.janeausten.co.uk/tag/sea-bathing/
The Atlantic article: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/279175/
More reading on sea towns: http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/printed/number19/sutherland.pdf

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Megan Walker was raised on a berry farm in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, where her imagination took her to times past and worlds away. While earning her degree in Early Childhood Education, she married her one true love and started a family. But her imaginings of Regency England wouldn’t leave her alone, so she picked up a pen. And the rest is history. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri, with her husband and three children.


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Austen's England: Peaceful as all that? I don't think so

by M.M. Bennetts

Today, for your edification and delight, I am going to rant about a thing very dear to my heart but which causes me no end of frustration and, even, dare I admit it, shuddering rage.

It is this--this often firmly held conviction (in defiance of the facts) that the Regency England about which Jane Austen wrote was this idyllic, peaceful, sheep-may-safely-graze land, nothing more than a jammy backdrop for aristos to chase young women in flimsy muslin gowns, wholly untouched by the war which just across the Channel was ravaging every Continental land, destroying societies and lives from a spreading cancer of French military tyranny and conquest.

So, some of those facts.  In the myriad country towns during the period, the places where most of the population still dwelled, what might have made up the fabric of their daily existence?  Jane Austen's or anyone's, really?

Well, let's start with what they heard.  Daily.  Writing in 1806, the British satirist, George Cruikshank noted, "Every town was...a sort of garrison--in one place you might hear the 'tattoo' of some youth learning to beat the drum, at another place some march or national air being practiced upon the fife, and every morning five o'clock the bugle horn was sounded through the streets, to call the volunteers to a two hours' drill...and then you heard the pop, pop, pop, of the single musket, or the heavy sound of the volley, or distant thunder of the artillery..." 

So much for waking to the gentle bleating of spring lambs and baby blackbirds learning to sing as melodiously as their parents, then.  The place was a sea-to-sea military base with all the serenity of a WW2 siren call.

And what about the sceptred isle landscape, the rolling beauty of the hills and Downland, the endless fields, pieced, ploughed, sown and fallow?  The landscape beyond every village and town, all of covered by farms and estates?  This perfect setting for a breath-taking ride with one's Mr Wickham in a high-perch phaeton?  Right?

Well, it may surprise and amaze you to know that from well before 1802, the great fear in Britain was that of invasion by the French.  It was a national obsession and the preparations to repel such an invasion wherever it came from and whenever were all-consuming.  And it wasn't for another decade, until Napoleon and his Grand Armee were well and truly whooped in Russia, that the national fever of defensive building works started to calm down.

They weren't exactly paranoid about nothing either in their fears. There had been the unsuccessful attempt to invade the British Isles in 1797 by the French--a huge storm, gales, blizzard and all that had blown the estimated 40,000 troops off course and had saved the day...but you can't count on that sort of divine intervention every day, can you?

So, hoppity poppity into the new Napoleonic era of the new century.  The short Corsican tyrant is in prime position in France.  He loves nothing better than a good conquest with himself as the new ruler.  Britain is allegedly at peace with France during the period known as the Peace of Amiens, which, just like later dictators have done, Napoleon is using to get his military machine in gear and ready to roll.

What's happening on the ground?  Once the peace of Amiens was officially over, well, across those counties thought to be most at risk--the southern coastal counties--everyplace became immersed in the preparations for war and invasion.

By August 1803, it was being reported that in fifteen counties, from Devon in the west across to the Isle of Wight, including the Cinque Ports along the coast, and all the way up in Northumberland and Fife, that over 50% of the male population, those aged between seventeen and fifty-five, were in uniform, wearing regular, yeomanry or volunteer uniform.

That's a lot of fellows in uniform if you think about it.  The counties of Kent and Sussex had 49% and 45% of their men in uniform respectively.  That's half the male population.  Imagine.

Another snippet you might like...they weren't all wearing red coats which shone brightly in the sunshine as we see in the old portraits.  Yes, originally, the uniforms were meant to be red.

But for the uniforms of the men, the government didn't have the money for the well-dyed red wool--that was for officers who could afford their own.  The enlisted or volunteer uniform was provided by the government, so obviously they were getting all they could on the cheap.  And the dye used in those job lots was madder, which after a year in the sun and perpetual rain of this country fades to a kind of rusty, blotchy sienna brown...Good for camouflage in autumn, I dare say.  

By 1804 then, a consensus had been reached on coastal defenses and across the face of the south coast, an intense programme of building ensued for the next several years, so that by 1808, 73 Martello towers and two 11-gun circular forts had been built.  Another 29 towers had been constructed along the Wash--the coasts of Suffolk and Essex. (Eventually the number of Martello towers constructed reached 168, extending all along the coast all the way to Orkney.)

These were quite impressive defensive towers they were building too.  Not cheap.  The walls were of varying thickness, but generally from between six to thirteen feet thick, with the heaviest walls facing seaward.  The bricks were bedded in hot lime mortar (imagine the smell as they were constructed) calculated to withstand bombardment from the sea.  The roofs were flat, supported from underneath by a central column, and carried on top a 24-pounder cannon which would have been mounted on a sliding traverse carriage which enabled it to fire round 360 degrees...

Anyone for a Regency stroll by the seaside?  Bring those parasols...

Finally, food.  The years of the early 19th century had seen a number of harsh winters and bad late harvests--courtesy of a mini-Ice Age--which had left the English feeling vulnerable on this point, and the government took this quite seriously.  Bread riots or any food shortages can too easily cause panic.  Hence, with the threat of invasion and the assumption that the French would head for London first--probably via Kent--great plans were laid to stockpile foodstuffs for the capital, so that it might hold out under siege.

Thus plans were made to create emergency stores near the capital, including rice, flour and salted provisions as well as 250 tons of biscuit meal, all stockpiled in depots around and in the capital at locations such as Fulham, Brentford and Staines...

Also, there were huge stockpiling needs across the South Coast to feed those thousands of militia, gathered to repel and defend the land--in 1804, more than 18,000 regular troops were stationed in Sussex, with another 20,000 more stationed nearby to be deployed at short notice.  There were thousands more stationed in Kent, particularly ready to defend Dover, where it was assumed the 'big assault' would happen.

And, within these troop numbers and within their training too, it's important to note that within each year, these troops would march hundreds of miles across counties, going where they were sent, training, marching, recruiting...England in the early 19th century was a country at war.  Fully and wholly at war.

There was not a day not an hour of any day, which did not include some element of the Napoleonic conflict.  And they knew it.

The plethora of English World War Two dramas and films will give one the true picture of the state of things--just change the uniforms to 200 years back and add sideburns.  Then you'll have it.

War everywhere, bulwarks, vast defensive buildings like Martello tower, drums, artillery practice, the post office going through all foreign post (probably Austen's letters to and from her sister-in-law were opened and read), the food shortages, the militia on every street corner of every village and town, the recruiting officers in the public houses, the thousands of marching, marching, marching men...And the drums at Portsmouth beating out Hearts of Oak at dawn, or the fife thinly whistling a new recruits poor-boy's version of Rule Britannia...

This then, 200 years ago was "This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war...This precious stone set in a silver sea...This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England."

This post from the #EHFA Archives was originally published on March 2, 2014.

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M.M. Bennetts, co-founder of English Historical Fiction Authors, passed away in August, 2014. She was a specialist in early 19th century British and European history and the Napoleonic wars and penned two novels, May 1812 and Of Honest Fame set during the period. A third novel, Or Fear of Peace, was to have been published in 2014.

For further information, please visit the website and historical blog at https://mmbennetts.wordpress.com/

Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun—A Brilliant, Adventurous French Portraitist During Jane Austen’s Era

by Diana Birchall

In Jane Austen's novel, Northanger Abbey, we are told that Catherine Morland was a naïve young girl, her mind “about as ignorant and uninformed as the female mind at seventeen usually is.” Fond of “horrid novels,” as Jane Austen termed the scary tales of the period, Catherine fancied that visiting Northanger Abbey, home of Henry Tilney, the clever, delightful young man she admired, would involve all sorts of delicious, romantic Gothic thrills. Instead she learned, with Henry pointing out to her, that such imaginings could not be real, not in a modern, Christian England; yet she still had to discover that people of ill will could be as troublesome as anything that sensational fiction could produce.

Catherine is, in my view, a true heroine. Therefore, I have longed for a portrait in which she might look out at us in what is called a speaking likeness. Where better to turn than to the beautiful female portraits painted by the famous French artist of the period, Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun? As she lived from 1755 to 1842, she encompasses Jane Austen’s own much shorter lifetime (1775 – 1817) and although Vigee Le Brun was French, she was by no means confined to France, as Jane Austen was to England, but lived an extraordinarily wide-ranging, adventurous, and remarkable life for a woman of her period.

Self portrait of Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun, 1790

Louise Elisabeth Vigee was born in Paris, daughter of a portraitist and a hairdresser. Her father died when she was twelve, and her mother remarried a jeweler, who exploited the young girl’s precocious artistic talents. Trained by her father, by the time she was fifteen she was a popular and prodigious painter, producing portraits highly sought by fashionable aristocrats, who saw her as a phenomenon. In 1776 she married Jean-Baptiste Le Brun, an artist and art dealer. Her star continued to rise, and by 1779 she painted the first of some thirty portraits she made of her patroness, Marie-Antoinette. This sealed her reputation and won her acceptance into the Academie Royale de peinture et de sculpture. Her talent for painting luminously flattering portraits of women in lovely Neoclassical fashions, was prized among courtiers. At the height of her fame, in 1789, with the arrest of the Royal Family and approach of the Revolution, Vigee Le Brun fled danger with her young daughter, Julie. Her husband remained in France during the dozen years of her exile and was obliged to divorce her. She traveled widely, in Italy, Spain, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Russia (she spent six years in St. Petersburg and painted Catherine the Great), Switzerland, and England. She was wildly feted and famed both as a painter and in high society everywhere she went, having as brilliant a career abroad as at home, and except for a brief sojourn in her homeland under Napoleon, she did not return to live in France permanently until 1805. She painted many famous people along the way, including Lord Byron, Madame de Stael, and King George IV as the Prince of Wales. After the death of her husband and then her daughter, she settled in Louveciennes, continued to paint, and wrote her gossipy, name-dropping memoirs, Souvenirs.

Portrait of Marie Antoinette, 1783

Vigee Le Brun is a fascinating figure among 18th/19th century personalities, radical in her behavior and her professional independence, her life was a striking contrast to that of the more retiring Jane Austen. The two never met; Jane Austen visited none of the countries where Vigee Le Brun travelled. They had only very slight, tangential connections in common, such as Vigee Le Brun painting Emma Hamilton, Lord Nelson’s mistress, and Jane’s brother Frank serving with Nelson. Or Jane’s cousin the Comtesse Eliza de Feuillide (whose French husband was guillotined) once writing a letter home to England about having seen Marie Antoinette at court, though there is no way of knowing if she ever came in contact with the Queen’s artistic friend. In her memoirs Vigee Le Brun tells an amusing story of spending time with an Englishwoman who spoke no French, while she spoke no English, and they determinedly each spoke for hours each in her own language, not understood by the other. Had Jane Austen ever met Vigee Le Brun, she might have done better, knowing at least some French; but she who refused an introduction to the clever worldly Madame de Stael, author of Corinne, might have been no more eager to meet the French woman painter.

Looking over a gallery of Vigee Le Brun’s works, searching for a face – one face, the face of Catherine – one is struck by how little the two artists’ worlds intersected. The painter was not only French but one who moved easily in aristocratic circles, a courted, public personality wherever she went. The faces she painted were mostly not English middle class or country family people such as are portrayed in Austen’s novels and letters. Moreover, we sense a faint disapproval of French culture in Austen, even apart from the fact that the two nations were at war for most of her life. The right-thinking Mr. Knightley disapproves of Frank Churchill in Emma, saying, “No, Emma, your amiable young man can be amiable only in French, not in English. He may be very ‘amiable’, have very good manners, and be very agreeable; but he can have no English delicacy towards the feelings of other people: nothing really amiable about him." And when young Catherine Morland comes despondently home from Northanger Abbey, her mother anxiously chastises her for talking too much about “the French bread at Northanger.”

Portrait of Madame de Stael as Corinne, 1809

By the end of her life Vigee Le Brun had dropped in fashion as a painter; her portraits probably seemed to hark back to the days of the Ancien Regime, and she mainly painted historical subjects. Nevertheless, during the years when she was painting lovely young women who were contemporaries of Jane Austen’s heroines, we do see a few faces that might have come out of Austen’s novels; and I recognized 'Catherine' as soon as I saw her. This young lady happens to have been exactly of an age with Catherine, painted in 1800 when she was eighteen, at just around the time as Austen was writing her early version of what became Northanger Abbey. The image in question is not however that of a naïve English country girl, but a French aristocrat, Corisande Armandine Leonie Sophie de Gramont (1783 – 1865). Corisande was a granddaughter of the Duchesse de Polignac, the favorite of Marie Antoinette, and she married an English Member of Parliament, Charles Augustus Bennet (there’s an Austen name for you!), 5th Earl of Tankerville, and settled in England.

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Diana Birchall worked for many years at Warner Bros studios as a story analyst, reading novels to see if they would make movies. Reading manuscripts went side by side with a restorative and sanity-preserving life in Jane Austen studies and resulted in her writing Austenesque fiction both as homage and attempted investigation of the secrets of Jane Austen's style. She is the author of In Defense of Mrs. Elton, Mrs. Elton in America, Mrs. Darcy's Dilemma, and the new The Bride of Northanger. She has written hundreds of Austenesque short stories and plays, as well as a biography of her novelist grandmother, and has lectured on her books and staged play readings at places as diverse as Hollywood, Brooklyn, Montreal, Chawton House Library, Alaska, and Yale. Visit Diana at her Austen Variations author page, follow her on Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads

The Bride of Northanger is now available for purchase through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. 

Sex, Swearing and Humour in the Regency Period

By Caroline Miley

History is full of facts, but Catherine Morland is probably not the only reader who sometimes found them a little trying: “I read it [history] a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page.”(1) Facts are, of course, of primary importance. But it's one thing to discover, for instance, that the Duke of Wellington's birthday was May Day, and quite another to know how it would have been celebrated - and the way life was lived is often far more interesting, but harder to discover, than reigns and dates and public events.

Thomas Rowlandson ‘Soldiers on a March’ 1808

Fortunately, in the late Georgian era there's a mass of contemporary material, ranging from newspapers, letters, diaries, memoirs and military dispatches to essays and novels. Not only are these full of useful information, they show clearly how people used to write and express themselves.

There's an idea that the Regency was full of people saying 'Demme, m'Lud, I do protest..' and so on, but a glance at Jane Austen's prose shows that ordinary people didn't speak like that at all. One of the things evident in reading a wide range of contemporary material is that educated people often used two quite different modes of expression, depending on what they were writing. There's the everyday, which is plain and unadorned. Clear, elegant prose was what the Georgians aimed for. Military dispatches, for instance, are models of concise statement. Here is the Duke of Wellington (in recorded speech): “All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don't know by what you do; that's what I called 'guessing what was at the other side of the hill’.”(2) So too with letters, including those Jane Austen gives in her novels. But when describing scenery in memoirs, writers sometimes break into a special 'literary' form: 'When we attained the crest of the hill, what a vale of Elysian delight opened before us! Fair Venus herself would not disdain to dwell in the exquisite groves...' and so on. But they didn't talk like that. It was a poetic mode considered suitable for literature.

The real problem for anyone wishing to learn not only the facts but the feeling of an era, is the vast amount of material that never appears in print. At the forefront of this is sex and swearing. Neither subject is ever mentioned, although there must have been a great deal of both. We can know quite a lot about sex at the time, but less of how people talked about it, and therefore what they thought. It was not a subject for polite conversation, so remained hidden. Fielding’s novels (Tom Jones, The History of Moll Flanders) and contemporary plays show that, as might be expected, people were keen on sex and thought about it a lot. There are hints about sexual desire under the text of Austen’s novels and letters – Lydia’s elopement with Wickham, and other seductions, must have been motivated by libido, and there are occasional comments that ‘I could not like him in that way’. It is noteworthy that the Georgians were a great deal less squeamish about sex than the later Victorians. The fact of Colonel Brandon’s having an illegitimate daughter, for instance, doesn’t make him an unsuitable husband for Marianne. But when it comes to details of what people did and how they did it, if it were not for Fanny Hill (3) and Rowlandson's numerous, often very graphic erotic drawings, I don't know how we'd get on at all. As it is, these two sources provide almost too much information!

Swearing also doesn't appear in print, except the occasional genteel 'by G- sir!' Naval and military reminiscences give a few more clues - one of my favourites being the officer who recalled that he had been several days as a midshipman on his first ship before discovering that 'Damn your eyes!' was not a form of greeting. But I think it is safe to assume that there was a great deal of swearing among men and the lower classes of women, and that it centred, then pretty much as now, around the common ‘Anglo-Saxon’ sexual words in use today and blasphemy. In sharp contrast to today, though, a gentleman certainly did not swear in the presence of a lady.

Which brings me to the final category: humour. I've not been able to find any joke books of the period, but irony and satire there were in plenty, and I have to assume that broad fall-on-your-face humour was as likely to raise a laugh then as now. Again, the multitude of lampoons and caricatures of the period give us the best clues to this category. Thomas Rowlandson’s ‘The Stare Case’ depicts a crowd on the notoriously narrow staircase of the Royal Academy at Exhibition time. Plump ladies are tumbling down, their skirts hiked up to show their rounded bottoms (no underwear in those days), while some dirty old men (and the sculptor Nollekens) ogle them from the foot of the stairs. A similar idea animates his sketch of ‘The Line of Beauty (a concept in art), in which some Royal Academicians (4) have positioned themselves strategically to take in the more intimate charms of the nude model reclining before them.

Thomas Rowlandson  ‘R.A.s of Genius Reflecting on the True Line
 of Beauty, at the Life Academy Somerset House June 1, 1824’ 

There is a great deal of pictorial humour along those lines, as well as poking fun at stereotypes, such as fat greedy men shoving food into their faces and elegant dandies tight-lacing their corsets and padding their skinny hips. One of my favourites, ‘On the March’ which typically combines information with comedy, shows a line of soldiers and camp followers crossing a stream. All are burdened with various things; one man bears his wife on his back; a frolicking dog (a Rowlandson trademark) holds a bundle in his mouth, and at the rear a sturdy wife carries her officer husband, too refined to get his feet wet, on her back.

Thomas Rowlandson ‘The Stare Case’ 1811

But lampoons are not the place to find the more subtle wit that really characterised the age.  Here is Austen at her best, in her letters, where she spoke less guardedly than in her published works: “I do not want People to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”(5) And for a feast of raillery, as it was called, it’s hard to go past Sheridan, the noted wit and satirist, who thought that “There's no possibility of being witty without a little ill-nature”(6). His plays are full of comedy, and he must have been a formidable opponent as an MP. To understand late Georgian humour, you can do a lot worse than to read contemporary plays. The wit is often surprisingly modern, my favourite being this riposte by Goldsmith’s Tony Lumpkin, when his mother suggests that he doesn’t want to disappoint his friends waiting at the tavern: “As for disappointing them, I should not so much mind; but I can't abide to disappoint myself.”(7)

These are not the great affairs of State (or affairs of Statesmen) that are the staple of so much history. But if we want to get inside the lives of ordinary people and find out what they thought and how they lived, then nothing is more important than humour, sex and swearing.


Notes
(1) Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, London, 1817, Chapter 14
(2) Quoted in The Croker Papers: The Correspondence and Diaries of the Late Right Honourable John Wilson Croker, LL.D F.R.S, Secretary of the Admiralty from 1809 to 1830 (1884), edited by Louis J. Jennings, Vol. III, p. 276.
(3) Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland, London 1748.
(4) Plate 32 from Charles Molloy Westmacott's "English Spy" 1824. Each artist's easel is initialled for identification: B.R.H. for Benjamin Robert Haydon, M.A. Shee for Martin Archer Shee, T.L for Sir Thomas Lawrence, B.W. for Benjamin West, R.W. for Richard Westmacott, J.J. for John Jackson, J.F. for Joseph Farington, and F.C. for Francis Chantrey (courtesy Met Museum).
(5) Letter to her sister Cassandra, December 24, 1798.
(6) The School for Scandal, Act 1, Scene 1.
(7) She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith, 1773, Act 1 Scene 1.

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Caroline Miley is an art historian and author of literary historical novels set in the late Georgian era. Her debut novel, The Competition, won a Varuna Fellowship and a Fellowship of Australian Writers award, and was selected by the Royal Academy of Arts for its 250th Anniversary celebrations. Her latest novel, Artist on Campaign, was inspired by wondering what would happen if a rake of an artist was obliged to put up with the British Army, and vice versa.
Her interests are art, both as a practitioner and a viewer, books, films, history, travel and gardens.

Social media
https://www.carolinemiley.com/
https://www.facebook.com/carolinemileywriter/

Home Theatricals: A Tarnished Image

by Maria Grace

Jane Austen and home theatricals

While play acting was decidedly a diversion of the wealthy, less affluent members of the gentry participated as well, including Jane Austen and her family. From 1782-1789, while living at the Steventon Rectory, Austen and her family performed modern and classic plays in the family dining parlor and barn. She would have been very familiar with the challenges of putting on such an entertainment: choosing an appropriate play which suited the space available for the performance, the actors available and their relative abilities; setting up the space, crafting the scenery, costumes and props; inviting guests and handling the publicity.

Often participants in amateur theatricals such as these learned the basics of stagecraft at boarding school. There, acting was considered a tool in training elocution and grace of movement. (Performing plays had been part of the public-school curriculum in England since the sixteenth century. (Haugen, 2014))

Scenery for the theatricals offered young people an opportunity to show off their skills in painting the backdrops—flat boards that would be brought in from the side of the stage or dropped down from above. If there was no one artistic in the party, a scene painter might be hired. Costumes and props might be especially made for the event, or repurposed from what was already on hand, depending in no small part, upon the pocketbook of the family hosting the event.

All it all, especially done on a small and modest scale, home theatricals was considered an acceptable activity for young people in search of something to alleviate their boredom. Minimal publicity, a small audience, a suitable play and senior family members en constume put the stamp of innocent diversions on family play-acting. (Vickery, 1998)

On Shaky Moral Grounds

Even so, there many possibly pitfalls for the participants, including issues that the modern observer would not readily recognize.

Jane Austen’s bother James (who along with Henry appeared to be the primary instigators of the theatricals) wrote prologues and epilogues for the plays they performed. In both professional and private theater, these additions, performed before and after the play, creating transitional spaces for the audience to shift into the world of the play and back out into the afterpiece or the real world if there was not afterpiece. (Oftentimes these also contained political and philosophic elements that could make them contentious.) Newspapers and magazines often printed these pieces, both from the public and private stage.

“On the public stage, one of the lead actresses customarily spoke the epilogue, and cultural stereotypes regarding the “loose morals” of women who acted professionally certainly colored the audience’s experience of the epilogue with sexual innuendo. … The private stages did attempt to differentiate themselves from the public stages in one notable way: their prologues and epilogues were spoken by either women or men. Uncoupling both prologue and epilogue from their conventional gendered connotations may have been one way to make them better suited for domestic entertainment, particularly with respectable women’s reputations at stake.” (Haugen, 2014) So simply utilizing the convention of the epilogue already put a home theatrical on shaky moral ground.

Home Theatricals in Novels

Maria Edgeworth

With something so fraught with ambiguity and danger, it is not surprising that Austen and other authors used the home theatrical as a literary means to expose less savory aspects of their characters and their worlds. Three 1814 novels by Jane Austen, Maria Edgeworth and Francis Burney portray theatricals as not only as threats to female virtue, conducive to dangerous entanglements, but having the potential to unleash unacceptable desires and unveil unwelcome personal and social truths. (Just a side note, all three authors had participated in family and home theatricals themselves.)

Francis Burney

All three authors use theatricals to reveal underlying truths about their characters. In Austen’s Mansfield Park, Fanny’s virtue is revealed in her opposition to the entire affair which also reveals the character weakness in Henry Crawford and Maria Bertram. Maria is later ruined by what was begun under the guise of the theatrical.

In Edgeworth’s Patronage the focus in on what a talent for acting might indicate about sincerity and integrity, especially if the actor is female. Being on stage ultimately exhibits the true character of her Georgiana, whose acting prowess reveals her to be essentially vain and insincere, someone for whom all of life is a performance.

Burney’s The Wanderer uses the private theatrical to question and disrupt the established hierarchies of class and gender. As the characters participate in the play, they, along with the readers question identities and categories that are usually clear and well understood. Although by the end of the novel all necessary proprieties have been reestablished, the theatrical provides a space for disorder and uncertainty essentially uncomfortable to the established social status quo.

The treatment of the home theatrical in these novels is different than that found in earlier work, which portrayed the events in a more positive light. This shift reflects an increased concern and discomfort with these performances.

Raising a Little Theater

In the 1790’s attitudes toward home theatricals began to change.

“In large part, this can be attributed to the profound changes taking place in the political and cultural milieu due to the French Revolution, the Reign of Terror, and its aftermath. In such a climate of fear and hostility, extravagant private theatres with lavish displays of opulence became easy targets. While, to a great extent, the press continued to follow the developments at such theatres with avid interest and publish flattering—often to the point of being sycophantic—reviews, the circulation of several pernicious polemical publications and a series of exceptionally scathing caricatures by James Gilray started to have a detrimental effect on public perception.” (Haugen, 2014)

The Pic-Nic Society, principally organized by the Countess of Buckinghamshire, began holding plays in 1802. The society, who utilized a private theatre on Tottenham Street did nothing to improve the public opinion of amateur theater. The group not only performed plays, but hosted an entire evening of entertainments: dancing, singing, card playing and a pic-nic supper—rather like a modern potluck, where all attendees contributed to the meal. With the Countess’ reputation as an inveterate faro player and compulsive gambler, her reputation for aristocratic excess tainted the Pic-Nic Society. With accusations of decadence and debauchery abounding and pointed derogatory caricatures by Gilray (Dilettanti theatricals and blowing up the pic nic society) circulating widely, the Pic-Nic Society folded under the weight of public censure.

“Raising a Little Theater”

Aristocratic excess was hardly the only concern regarding the ‘safety’ and propriety of home theatricals. In Austen’s Mansfield Park, Tom talks about ‘raising a little theater’ paralleling it to the idea of raising a little hell; for him a theatrical provided an opportunity to say and do things that were normally off limits in polite society.

“Acting, by its very nature, involves putting on different gestures, behaviors, manners, and emotions, fashioning and re-fashioning characters and identities in a process that, to the spectator, appears almost as quick and easy as changing costumes. But when this role playing takes place on a private stage, the mutability of the boundaries that defined and identified 250 categories of everyday life in the eighteenth century—gender, class, social status, rank, race, national allegiance—is laid bare, for the distinction between actor and role is blurred in such a setting where the close connections of family and friendship between actors and audience delimit any objectivity or distance.” (Haugen, 2014) The blurring of these all-important lines posed a danger to the vulnerable in society—particularly the children and young women—who needed to be protected from these disquieting and potentially ruinous effects.

Home Theatricals: A Tarnished Image

Casting off Proper Restraint

Moreover, acting often demanded the players suspend polite behavior for the sake of the play. At the end of the Georgian era, the demonstration of ‘polite behavior’ had reached almost cultish proportions. Deviating from it could spell social ruin, particularly for young unmarried ladies. Proper, polite behavior required definite emotional restraint for both men and women. One was not to display emotion openly in front of others. (The one exception for ladies: they could swoon when faced with an extremely distressing or vulgar situation.) Stage conventions of the time encouraged actresses to swoon excessively and male actors to rant and rail expressively. (Can we say overacting? But I digress.)

Moreover, audiences were expected to respond to these displays with sighs, weeping and groaning. So much emotion! What is a proper household to do?

If this were not enough, theatricals also were likely to involve active physical contact between the actors and actresses during the performance. While acceptable for the professional actress (who was not considered a proper gentlewoman by any stretch), that kind of behavior was most improper for a gentleman's daughter with a reputation and marriage prospects to consider. Doing it under the guise of a theatrical performance offered only a thin veneer of protection.

Reverend Thomas Gisbourne (1797) summed up the situation:

For some years past the custom of acting in plays in private theatres, fitted up by individuals of fortune, had occasionally prevailed…. Take the benefit of all these favourable circumstances; yet what is even then the tendency of such an amusement? To encourage vanity; to excite a thirst of applause and admiration of attainments which, if they are to be thus exhibited, it would commonly have been far better for the individual not to possess; to destroy diffidence, by the unrestrained familiarity with the persons of the other sex, which inevitably results from being joined with them in the drama; to create a general fondness for the perusal of plays, of which so many are unfit to be read; and for attending dramatic representations, of which so many are unfit to be witnessed”

Austen’s Personal Observations

On the recommendation of her sister Cassandra, Jane Austen read Gisbourne’s work in 1805. Apparently, Austen surprised herself by approving with the reverend’s writing. While there is no way to know Austen approved, it is not a far stretch to imagine that her own experiences with home theatricals might have contributed to her response.

In 1787, her cousin Eliza Hancock stayed with the Austens, and the young people performed The Wonder. Austen family tradition suggests Eliza flirted openly with both James and Henry (who were the instigators of the family theatricals.) She played the heroine of that play while Henry played the hero. The play offered many opportunities for ‘stage business’ between the two players. (Austen Only, 2010)

Some suggest Eliza Hancock was Austen’s inspiration in several pieces of Austen’s juvenilia, particularly Henry and Eliza and Lady Susan. She is also thought to be the model for Mary Crawford in Mansfield Park. Eventually Eliza and Henry married, in 1797 the two married, after her first husband was guillotined in 1794.

One cannot help but wonder if Austen was putting a bit of herself into the character of Fanny Price who saw quickly how the young lovers of the party could turn the circumstance of the theatrical to their momentary advantage—and eventual ruin.

References

Baer, Marc. Theatre and Disorder in Late Georgian London. Clarendon Press. 1992

Byrne, Paula. Jane Austen and the Theatre. Bloomsbury Academic. 2007

Collins, Irene. Jane Austen, the Parson's Daughter. London: Hambledon Press, 1998.

Fullerton, Susannah. Jane Austen and Crime. Sydney: Jane Austen Society of Australia, 2004.

Gisborne, Thomas. An Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex. London: Cadell and Davies, 1797.

Haugen, Janine Marie, “The Mimic Stage: Private Theatricals in Georgian Britain.” (2014). English Graduate Theses & Dissertations. 68. https://scholar.colorado.edu/engl_gradetds/68

Hudson, Chuck. “Theater in Georgian England.” The Historic Interpreter. March, 16, 2015. Accessed July, 2, 2019. https://historicinterpreter.wordpress.com/2015/03/16/theatre-in-georgian-england/

Laudermilk, Sharon H., and Teresa L. Hamlin. The Regency Companion. New York: Garland, 1989.

Selwyn, David. Jane Austen and Leisure. London: Hambledon Press, 1999.

Vickery, Amanda. The Gentleman's Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998.

Wakefield, J. F., “Jane Austen: Fanny Price and Private Theatricals.” Austen Only. June 6, 2010. Accessed June, 2, 2019. http://austenonly.com/2010/06/06/jane-austen-fanny-price-and-private-theatricals/

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Though Maria Grace has been writing fiction since she was ten years old, those early efforts happily reside in a file drawer and are unlikely to see the light of day again, for which many are grateful. 

After penning five file-drawer novels in high school, she took a break from writing to pursue college and earn her doctorate. After 16 years of university teaching, she returned to her first love, fiction writing.

Click here to find her books on Amazon. For more on her writing and other Random Bits of Fascination, visit her website. You can also like her on Facebook, or follow on Twitter.