Editors' Weekly Round-Up, December 25, 2016

by the EHFA Editors

Enjoy this week's articles from the blog:

Tudor Christmas Gifts

by Deborah Swift 

(Editor's Choice from the archives)

St. Etheldreda: Twice Married and Still a Virgin

by Kim Rendfeld

The Life of a Queen Bee:

Or, Doing Your Royal Duty

by Anna Belfrage

A Viennese Christmas, 1814

by M.M. Bennetts

(Editor's Choice from the archives)

Editors' Weekly Round-Up, October 30, 2016

by the EHFA Editors

Did you miss a post on the blog this week?  Check out our weekly round-up:

The Jilting Princess...

by M.M. Bennetts

Young Love, the Gunpowder Treason and 

the Law of Adulterine Bastardy: The Banbury Case 

by Linda Fetterly Root

So We'll Go No More a-Courting - of an Insane Swede and Elizabeth I

by Anna Belfrage

The Celts - Occupations and Leisure Activities

by Annie Whitehead

The Truth About Halloween and Tudor England

by Nancy Bilyeau

Authors, Researchers - we welcome inquiries about writing for English Historical Fiction Authors. Please contact us for guidelines.

Editors' Weekly Round-Up - October 9, 2016

by the EHFA Editors

Featured this week on EHFA:

The Medieval Romances of Chrétien de Troyes

by E.M. Powell

(Editors Choice archival post)

Entertainment Tonight--Regency Style

by M.M. Bennetts

(Editors Choice archival post)

The Isles' First Gold Rush

by J.S. Dunn

Cromwell, More and the Most Hated Man in America

by Nancy Bilyeau

The Tragic Life of Catherine Gordon

by Samantha Wilcoxson 

Mary II of England: A Queen of Gardens

by Margaret Porter

(Editors Choice archival post)

Editors Weekly Round Up: August 7, 2016

by the EHFA Editors

Enjoy this week's wrap up of posts on the blog:

The Royal Spy ~ Prince William Henry

by M.M. Bennetts

(an Editors Choice archives post)

The Christians Are Coming! (The islands of Iona and Lindisfarne)

by Matthew Harffy

Ann Fanshawe: A Memoir of Love

by Cryssa Bazos 

(an Editors Choice archives post)

Legend or Fiction: The Historical Evidence for Arthur

by Richard Denning

(an Editors Choice archives post)

Crime and Punishment the Medieval Way

by Jeri Westerson 

Dorothy Bentinck, Duchess of Portland

by Lauren Gilbert 

Mr. Darcy strips off...

by M.M. Bennetts

Upon occasion I feel the need to bring the late M.M. Bennetts' work to the forefront again. Today is one of those days. I'm sure you'll enjoy this amusing post, whatever era interests you. And if you have not read her books, please take a look at them. And now, the entertaining M.M. Bennetts:

First off, we have a conundrum.

Because, of course, there are two versions of the novel featuring Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, set in two sartorially different periods. Do I tell you about Mr. Darcy circa 1796-97 when First Impressions was being written? Hmn. Well, that's easily solved. In 1797 wealthy young men were wearing cravats in the style of the Prince of Wales, which "were then worn without stiffening of any kind, and bagged out in front, rucking up to the chin in a roll." Messy. Very messy. Not to say slovenly...

Therefore, a picture of Darcy circa 1813--when the revised novel, Pride and Prejudice as it was now called, was published--is no doubt the better choice.

Gentlemen's clothing had undergone a radical change during the early years of the 19th century. The long war with France had isolated Britain from the Parisian trend-setters who had dominated the 18th century, along with their preference for brightly coloured silks and satins. In their place, a new, austere, almost monochromatic aesthetic had taken hold, courtesy of one George Brummell, based on the finest of British tailoring, and drawing its inspiration from the military, from English horsemanship and a classical standard of masculinity as seen in the ancient Greek and Roman statuary, most notably the Apollo Belvedere.

And this ideal of "unity, simplicity and a continuously flowing movement from one part of the body to the next" is at the core of Regency menswear.

The body beneath must needs be moulded into a figure worthy of the clothes too--hence the daily exercise taken by gentlemen at the many boxing saloons, such as Gentleman Jackson's, or Fencing schools about London. Riding is also known to build strong back and shoulder muscles, as well as those of the thighs and calves. Carriage driving also requires very strong shoulders...

So, there's the man and the ideal...but what's he wearing?

Among the essentials of this new neo-classical look were breeches or pantaloons for the day, made either of doeskin or chamois leather or a soft stocking-like fabric. (If made of soft leather, often the wearer first wore them dampened, allowing them to dry to his physique so that they more closely resembled a second skin--they weren't called bum-clingers for nothing.) Both had corset lacing at the back, a fall front fastened by side buttons over the stomach, and were held up with braces to maintain the severe and fitted line over the thigh. They were also cut wider on one side at the top of the thigh, and higher on the other, to accomodate the family jewels, in a custom known as dressing to one side. Beneath the knee, button fastenings kept the fabric taut down the length of the leg.

Evening breeches or pantaloons were made of sheer black silk jersey, knitted cashmere or a stretchy silk-stockinette imported from India, made with only one seam per leg and that along the outside--though this was sometimes embroidered or 'clocked' down the length of it--all of which was intended to frame the muscles of the thigh.

For summer, the breeches would be cut the same, but made of stout pale or white linen or nankeen, a heavy twilled cotton.

Just as important was a gentleman's fitted waistcoat, which would have been made of white or skin-toned fabric--the idea being that if a gentleman were to remove his coat, in his shirtsleeves and from a distance, he would resemble nothing so much as a naked Greek god, muscular, beautiful, carved from marble or stone.

Coats were now made of dark matte fabrics such as wool Bath cloth or 'superfine', sculpted through the back and shoulders, with a high collar to provide a contrasting frame to the whiteness of the starched cravats. Our Mr. Darcy has several specialist tailors from whose work to chuse: John Weston's at No. 34 Old Bond Street, or even Mr. Brummell's favourite, Schweitzer & Davidson on Cork Street.

Beneath it all, the shirt of white linen, plain and lightly starched, with collars "so large that, before being folded down, it completely hid [the] head and face..." with tiny buttons at the neck and cuffs. Cuffs were worn long--a good inch or two longer than the coat sleeve to emphasise the fact that the gentleman did not work.

About Mr. Darcy's neck was his starched cravat.

Made of fine Irish muslin, a triangle was cut on the diagonal from a square yard of fabric, with its edges plainly stitched. This triangle was then folded twice and wrapped carefully about the neck, with the ends tied in one of several manners before the wearer lowered his chin to create a neat series of folds which were either rubbed into place by a day-old shirt or pressed with a hot iron. (I favour the day-old shirt method, myself...less danger of frying the larynx.)

Footwear? Highly polished Hessian boots with spurs by day and thinly-soled black pumps for evening.

Underwear? Very little was worn and then only rarely--it being pretty much a thing of the 18th century, although it was still in use (in cold weather, for example) and referred to as 'summer trousers'. In this look of careless, casual, sensual arrogance, there was no room for lumpy knickers or rucked up shirt tails. However, due to the transparency and cut of the tight kneebreeches and pantaloons, a lining of either flannel or cotton was sometimes incorporated into the garments.

Mr. Darcy would have dressed some three or four times during the course of a normal day.

He would also have required, per week, in addition to the usual "20 shirts, 24 pocket handkerchiefs, 9 or 10 summer trousers, 30 neck handkerchiefs, a dozen waistcoats, and stockings at discretion", a chintz dressing gown and Turkish slippers for taking his breakfast.

He would also have several driving coats and/or greatcoats, caped, and made of a heavier wool worsted or "Norwich stuff" for colder, rainier weather (read every day from September to May and most of June).

Like Brummell and other gentlemen of his class and station, Darcy would have bathed every part of his body every day, and in hot water. He would have used no perfumes (they were considered very 18th century!) but smelled instead of very fine linen and country washing.

So there he is--drab greatcoat emphasising the width of his shoulders, thigh-hugging doeskin breeches, pale waistcoat, dark coat (navy, grey or black being the preferred colours), and pristine white cravat and collarpoints outlining the strength of his jaw. Polished Hessians are on his feet.

Does he not look fine? Every inch a god?

So now...let's take it off.

His high-crowned bevor, his cane, his gloves and his greatcoat he has, fortunately, left with the footman belowstairs. The door is shut.

His boots (with or without horse muck on them) have been left at the door or really anywhere but in the bedchamber, if at all possible. There are two reasons for this. One, this may be a good idea at a time when there are no Dysons or Hoovers. But also, the method of removing one's boots generally required the backside of another person, and gentlemen didn't much care for bootjacks as it was said to break down the back of the boot. Equally, the reason a gentleman did not 'sit down in all his dirt' was a pungent one.

So shoes are a better bet. Easier to slip off.

And it all starts this way: with the the kissing...this could go on for a long time. A very long time. Because the most important thing is always that his Eliza feels and knows that her wishes and desires are paramount to his.

Then, the coat comes off. It's easier, I'll be frank, if she'll slips her hands upward from his chest toward his shoulders and lifts it away from him. But assuming she's not forward and that he doesn't have his coats cut so as to make removing them akin to peeling an obstreperous orange, he shrugs the thing off, first one shoulder, then the other, all the while still kissing her.

Then, the waistcoat. Button by tiny button. All eleven or so of the things. More than that if the waistcoat is double breasted. And with each button, a sensation of incremental yet greater sensual liberty is attained.

The waistcoat now on the floor with the coat, Darcy slides his index finger into the front of that knot of white linen at the base of the throat and pulls. And index finger into the remaining tied-bit and pulls. And freedom. And the end of the cravat is yanked and pulled off and discarded onto the floor.

Then he takes down his braces, first one, then the other.

And finally, he undoes the small Dorset buttons at his neck and cuffs. But being not a little impatient, he pulls the shirt off over his head without unbuttoning it all the way.

But the removal of the shirt only happens when she wishes it to happen. For all the time, his removal of his clothes is secondary to touching her, kissing her, telling her in every wordless way that her beauty blocks out the sky and the stars and is all that he sees.

And that's how he did it.

"To teach thee, I am naked first..." John Donne




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

M.M. Bennetts was a specialist in early nineteenth-century British and European history, and the author of two historical novels set in the period - May 1812 and Of Honest Fame: Amazon. Find out more at www.mmbennetts.com.

In and Out of Jane Austen's Window

Today's post is a year old, brought from my other blog. It was written by a great fan of Jane Austen's work, a good friend to many of us, now deceased.

by M.M. Bennetts

We do love our period costume dramas, don't we?

I mean, what could be more restful than slipping back into a slower age, a more peaceful idyllic age, when horses clip-clopped their ways across the country, the corn was green in the fields, they wore elegant clothes that looked soft and weren't all black, and society was stable and one found one's Captain Wentworth or John Thornton in a garden of yellow roses? Or driving a high-perch phaeton with scarlet-wheels, wearing an eight-caped greatcoat, with a team of matched greys?

And that must be how it was, mustn't it, because Austen for one never mentions a world beyond that charming and charmed existence, does she?

But here's the thing, we tend to forget that Austen was actually--and this may come as a bit of a shocker--quite an experimental novelist. That is to say, without exaggerating, in many ways, she must be credited as one of the inventors of the novel.

And when she was putting quill to paper, there were no rules. Such a thing as a how-to-write-a-novel manuals hadn't even been imagined! She wrote what she chose. No one was there to tell her differently. And if she decided not to write about the realities of her existence and the daily life about which she knew everybody already knew, who was there to criticise or complain?

(And let's be honest, those gardens, those carriages, those clothes and the great houses do make for excellent cinematography.)

But...

One of the great surprises/shocks to me as I've researched the period of the early 19th century in England has been how many people walked everywhere. And no, I'm not just talking about the working classes and rural poor. I'm talking everyone. We think they had horses coming out of the wazoo and of all those photogenic carriages. They actually walked.

There's an account of a young doctor from Ireland who was training in Edinburgh and when the peace came in 1814 with Napoleonic France, he was accepted for further study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

How did he get to France? He had the money. So did he take the stage or mail coach to Dover? No, he bought himself a stout pair of boots and he walked there. 960 miles in six weeks. And as he walked the length of Britain, he wasn't alone. Never alone. Not by a long chalk.

Every road and pikeroad upon which he trudged--about twenty miles a day--from north to south was chock-a-block with of every description of person: itinerant labourers from every county--hedgers and ditchers, tinkers, drovers with their flocks, ballad-singers, harvesters, preachers, pedlars...

And not only but also, during the early 19th century, when Britain was on a full-war footing against Napoleonic France, a great deal of the training of the thousands of soldiers and militia included marching hundreds of miles from county to county.

Imagine it...

Thus our young doctor encountered on every not-quiet lane, a press of people walking, always walking. Because everyone, unless they were wealthy or very fortunately placed, had no other option.

Yes, there were coaches, but they were expensive. And the early 19th century was a period of immense inflation due to the war (taxes--war costs so much more than anybody really wants to contemplate). Also the weather which was abominable--they were in the midst of a mini-Ice Age though they didn't know it--with failed harvest after failed harvest, sending the cost of food sky-high.

And betwixt and between this mass of trudging humanity, there were of course the farmers and their carts bringing their produce to the nearest market town or perhaps to London where the prices would be better.

But again, it's not like in the films--carts were employed to transport heavy loads--everything from coal to produce to road-building materials either long or short distances. The horse--usually a heavy cob or pack-horse pulling these carts--walked at foot-pace, no clip-clopping merrily, straining on the inclines (and England is covered with hills and Downland) with their masters walking alongside, one hand on the harness and in the other a whip or goad.

(Walking was also the new Romantic pursuit of choice. It wasn't just William Wordsworth who bought himself, yes, a pair of stout boots, to walk in and much admire the hills of Cumbria. Viscount Castlereagh, husband to one of Almack's patronesses and a powerful politician in his own right as Foreign Secretary, loved nothing better than buying a pair of stout boots and walking the hills and peaks of Northumberland whenever he could get away.)

(I'm still working out how they dried out their sopping wet clothes after all the rain--probably every house and inn from John o'Groats to Land's End stank of wet, drying wool all year long! And wet dog.)

But what of inside?

Those candlelit scenes look lovely on-screen, don't they? So flattering and soft--everyone looks great. But, for example, reading by one candle or oil lamp is not so great. And if that's the only light in the one room where everyone is gathered because that's the only room with a fire in the grate, well, that's pretty dark.

Also, what is so easy to forget is just how far north Great Britain lies on the lines of latitude. During the winter months, darkness falls (earlier in the north) by half past four. Daylight comes trickling in somewhat eight-ish. So there are a great many unlit by sunlight hours...And again, due to inflation and the war, the price of candles was sky-high. So one economised. As certainly Miss Austen and her mother and sister would have done at Chawton.

But another thing that I didn't really recognise until one day a few years ago when I was visiting the mediaeval manor owned by the National Trust, Cotehele. Now this house is just a mediaeval beauty! But it is unlit by modern technology. And on this particular day, a black thunderstorm came over the Tamar Valley and obliterated all light--and they are a common feature of this island.

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/cotehele/?p=1356297446549

I was in this oak panelled hallway and it was obsidian as a coal shaft! So what if one were myopic in an age without good eyeglasses? (Servants?) Well, one would be bumping into everything! And then I understood even more--how did the Puritans cope--and no wonder our ancestors loved colour and light clothes--it meant they could at least make out the other figures in the room in all that darkness.

Moreover, all those single candles, all those candelabra on the tables, above each on the ceiling will be stained with a roundel of black soot, and somebody had to clean those in an age when the cleaning products did not come from the grocers, they came from hartshorn or other natural ingredients and one made these oneself.

Finally, I'd just like to say a word about our perception of the aristocratic and gentry women of the age. We look at Eliza Bennet and imagine her bountiful happiness at taking on the role of mistress of Pemberley.

But we too often have no clue what that must have entailed. A big house, such as Pemberley or Chatsworth or any of the other great houses, required a mistress who was trained to the position of basically running a large hotel to put it bluntly. And we know, for example, from the biographies of several ladies of the late 18th and early 19th century, that this was at the best of times a struggle. Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, really had her work cut out for her when she took on Chatsworth--and she was brought up to the job.

Amongst the responsibilities of the mistress of such a place was the care and oversight of all the indoor servants--that might be upwards of 30 people-- including dressing them. (Except for the very grand houses and aristocratic families, servants of this period did not wear livery; they wore serviceable clothes, all of which were provided...brown or grey being a popular choice as it didn't shew the dirt.)

These ladies were also responsible for approving all menus, for ensuring that everyone in the household was fed, and when anyone on the estate was sick looked after. She was also expected to supervise her children's education, thus she needed a degree of education herself. She also managed, as it were, the stream of guests--bearing in mind this is a rural society, so one invites one's friends to visit and stay--and that includes their servants as well--so more people and activities to manage, often for weeks or months.

(Imagine the amount of bed linen such a house must have--and just how labour-intensive the washing thereof! And no Fairy powder neither!)

Oh, and there was the absolute necessity of providing that necessity--an heir and to spare.

But if our lady's husband traveled a great deal, was in the army or Royal Navy, or preferred London society to hers, our lady is at home, managing not the just the household, but the estate and farm as well. Which on the one hand meant that they really hadn't the time to get up to anything but paying taxes, the servant's wages, overseeing the income and vast expenditure and hiring in the local builders to mend the leaking ceiling after that last thunderstorm...

And yet these women did more. Often, we know from their letters that it was they who were responsible for restoring, rebuilding, adding on wings and furnishing these glorious houses--not the men. (One of my favourite women for this is Theresa Parker, mistress of Saltram.)

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/saltram/

Amazing, isn't it all? Different from the images we cherish from our favourite 19th century novels and costume dramas, perhaps. But you know, I do feel that the real thing is just so breathtakingly wondrous, a panoramic of this fantabulous world of ours 200 years ago, I kind of prefer those many roads upon which all those stories are walking...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(M.M. Bennetts was a specialist in early 19th century Britain and the Napoleonic wars and wrote two novels, May 1812 and Of Honest Fame, both of which are set amidst the world of walkers and wonders...and are available at Amazon.)

Call for Submissions

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

English Historical Fiction Authors Announces the First annual M.M. Bennetts Award for Historical Fiction

Entries are being accepted for works published in 2014

The prize of $500 will be announced at the Historical Novel Society Conference in June, 2015

For further details and to submit an application visit http://mmbaward.blogspot.com.

M.M. Bennetts: The Closest Friend I Never Met

By Nancy Bilyeau

On December 11, 2011, I sent a Facebook friend request to a British writer named M.M. Bennetts with the following message: "You are the funniest person in our group. Please do me the honor of permitting Facebook friendship."

Her swift response: "Ha. Ha. Ha. Can't think what I've said. But yes, absolutely, delighted to."

And that was the beginning of it.

In December 2011 I was a woman with a debut novel one month away from publication. As we are all advised to do, I was writing a flurry of blog posts and meeting fellow authors in person and online. And enjoying myself. I loved writing my first post, one about Halloween in the Tudor era, for English Historical Fiction Authors, a group blog launched by author Debra Brown with the idea that each day a different person would post something on real history, either touched on in the research of a novel or simply of great interest.

Enter M.M.

As Debbie told me in an email: "It was in December. Things got behind with holidays, and I did not have enough posts. I invited British histfic authors from the Triberr group I was in to join, and that is when she came in. She said she could provide two or three posts if I needed them. 'Just ask,' she said. 'Anytime.' "

She was the perfect addition to the group and soon became one of its most active members. M.M. Bennetts, an accomplished author of two novels, Of Honest Fame and May 1812, was also a tireless researcher and editor and a book critic of many years with The Christian Science Monitor.

Or, as M.M. once put it to me: "I know I'll dig and dig until I get as close to the truth as possible, even if it means I annoy the hell out of everyone. And I don't care if people like me--I was too long a book critic to care about that."

You see, that was what I loved most about her. She was brilliant and talented and generous--and she had an edge. A wicked sense of humor and little tolerance for a "nincompetentpoop" or "wholly unintelligible drivel." We reviewed each other's books--mine Tudor thrillers and hers Napoleonic spy stories--and furiously promoted each other's blog posts on social media. And in 687 private Facebook messages over nearly three years (is this a record??), we would vent to each other about the difficulty of publishing novels. "The prob is at the minute over here, everything is World War I until I'm about to vomit. It's everybloodywhere." We swapped bits of hard-won experience and insight. There were a few tears but more often there were jokes, as in her priceless assessment: "The publishing industry is knee deep in horse muck. Only horse muck is good for roses and I'm not sure what they're good for."

I was a little intimidated by how many things she did well. She was a talented pianist. She was a horsewoman. She knew a lot about gardening. M.M. and I had in common a distaste for easy sentiment about historical figures. She had done years of research into Napoleon and knew about the havoc of his armies. She did not like the romanticizing of him, and she approved my similarly un-sentimental feeling toward Henry VIII.

I was nervous about my first bookstore reading, and she shot me useful advice in an email. Afterward I celebrated with her. No one was better than M.M. Bennetts at celebrating something going well for once.

On the bookstore reading: "The worst is one where no one comes. Ha ha. I once had a reading at a local shop and about an hour before really bad weather blew in and the heavens just opened and there were flash floods locally. So there I was with the bookshop owner and one friend who braved the deluge (and she was dripping...) So that was a bit tense, but you just have to laugh because there's nothing you can do about it. Though you do feel like a numpty with these stacks of books just sitting there. So chuffed it went well for you."

We kept nagging each other to visit. Only the Atlantic Ocean separated us! I'd traveled to London in the summer of 2011 to research The Chalice but I hadn't known M.M. then. When I pressed her to come to Florida for the June 2013 Historical Novel Society conference, she responded: "Me, on an airplane, with my claustrophobia? That's just not going to happen." Also: "June is the month in which Parnel sits her A-levels, has her final Speech Day, has her Leavers' Ball (parents invited) and sundry parties. You may have thought otherwise, but really, I'm just a high-end taxi service. So I have a better plan. You come here. For research for your next book. I could be nice and take you on the cakey tour!"

I wanted very much to visit, but finances wouldn't permit it. Still, we talked a lot about our agenda during my theoretical stay. I confided: "High tea is what has the power to bring me to tears."

M.M. responded: "Don't cry over it. That just ruins the tea. If you want high tea, we should go over to what used to be the family shack in Sparsholt. Now it's a posh hotel. Or there's a place down in Brockenhurst which does a fine high tea. Ginger Two has the best cake in Hampshire and that's in Winchester. Very homey--there's a pic of all the cake on my wall--the only pic. I have my priorities."

Of Honest Fame is a suspenseful and beautifully written novel. Read my review here: "A Regency Novel Like No Other." M.M. was doing an amazing job with her article writing and her editing of the EHFA anthology  Castles, Customs and Kings. But what about another novel, I asked?

"I want to--just as you say--have fun with writing again," she responded. "Enjoy my work, enjoy playing with the language and characters like a sculptor plays with clay. But there's this manic focus on numbers--how many books have you written and how many have you sold and it's all push, push, push, and no time for reflection--but at heart, books are about dreaming... which is just the opposite. So I don't know..."

This past March I received an email from M.M. that surprised and worried me: "I've been, er, fighting the big c for a few years now, am just about finished with a kind of big thing with radiotherapy to the head--they are also convinced I'm going to be fine, and I'm looking forward, but you know, I want my life back, and I want to get back in the saddle with my work."

She reassured me several times that she was getting better, suggesting I write a guest post for her blog on the Hermit of Dartford, but at the same time I noticed her witty and knowledgeable comments on the EHFA Facebook group were becoming less and less frequent.

My last email to my friend M.M. Bennetts was on August 9, alerting her to my blog post on the Hellfire Club in Medmenham Abbey: "I thought that if anyone would enjoy a bit of Georgian debauchery, it would be you!"

There was never a response. And then I knew. Yet when her daughter emailed me in that M.M. had died, peacefully, surrounded by family on August 25, I looked at the message on my phone in disbelief. I read it on the way out of my apartment building and found I couldn't get out the door. I sat in the corner of the lobby, facing the courtyard window, and I cried and cried.

I mourn her friendship, her knowledge, her warmth, her never-to-be-forgotten jokes. I wish with all my heart she'd written another novel. I hope people will find the fine ones she did write.

"We learn and we grow wise and we do it ourselves," she once emailed me.

M.M., I promise you I will try.

Love, Nancy


M.M. befriended many members of English Historical Fiction Authors besides myself, and touched readers with her storytelling gifts as well. Debbie Brown and I would love it if we all shared a memory of M.M. Bennetts in the comments section of this blog post.

M.M. Bennetts
29 July, 1957 - 25 August, 2014

Boy Sailors During the Age of Nelson and Napoleon

by M.M. Bennetts

Anyone who has thrilled to the dramas of naval derring-do such as Horatio Hornblower or Master and Commander will have observed that on the British ships of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, there were a great many boys--often as young as 12--serving aboard His Majesty's Ships.  

Indeed, it had been a 12 year old boy who had saved the day and the general (in this case, Sir Francis Drake) back in 1578 after a fracas with natives near the Island of Mocha.  So boys, working their way up the ladder, as it were, proved a common feature of the English navy from its beginnings.  And they were called 'Younkers'.

The eighteenth century saw a great rise in charitable institutions which were often founded to enable the poorest of London poor to climb out of the gutter and provide for themselves in a legitimate trade.  In 1756, The Marine Society was just one of these ventures--others included the Foundling Hospital and the Royal Hospital School.  At the first meeting of the founders, held at the King's Arms Tavern in Cornhill, they met to approve "A Plan of the Society for contributing towards a supply of Two or Three thousand Mariners for the Navy."

They began an Entry Book for Boys on 5 August 1756.  In this document, they recorded all the pertinent information they received about the boys, their age (if known), whether they had parents or were fatherless, their place of abode.  They also used the term 'friendless' which was in their eyes a worse condition than being an orphan.

The next meeting of this Society stated their aims:  "John Fielding having procured 24 boys for sea service, they were all clothed by the Society...Order'd that 10 of said boys be sent to Admiral Broderick and 14 to Capt. Barber of the Princess Royal at the Nore and that each boy shall have a Testament, Common Prayer Book, Clasp Knife and a printed list of their Cloths."

In 1756, of course, Britain was on the brink of entering the Seven Years' War.  During that period of time, the Royal Navy's manpower requirements rose swiftly--from 10,000 men to 80,000.  Moreover, there was an endless need for servants aboard ship, for cabin boys, loblolly boys, carpenters' mates...

Indeed, the Society launched a massive newspaper campaign to recruit:  "All stout Lads and Boys who incline to go on board His Majesty's Ships, as servants, with a view to learn the duty of a seaman, and are upon examination, approved by the Marine Society, shall be handsomely clothed and provided with bedding and their charges borne down to the ports where His Majesty's Ships lye, with all proper encouragement."

By 1772, the Regulations of the Marine Society were including a great deal more information about the boys they received.  There were columns in which to note if a boy was 'good' or not so good; some are recorded as having 'little or no guard against temptation', while others are said to be 'abominably corrupted [by the] most wicked company, in the most wicked parts of these kingdoms' or 'hardened in iniquity'.

Still, the Marine Society was offering these boys, described by the magistrate John Fielding as "numberless miserable, deserted, ragged, and iniquitous pilfering Boys that at this Time shamefully infested the Streets of London" a new life, one which included an education of sorts leading to a lifelong trade, steady rations, safe housing and a kitbag which included a felt hat, a kersey pea jacket, two worsted caps, waistcoat, shirts, trousers, three pairs of drawers, and a pair of shoes.  It seemed a good deal for many.

And over time, as the Society grew along with the need for more boys to feed the ever-expanding British naval workforce, magistrates, beadles, parish officers, aldermen and bishops all came to use the Society's provision as one option for criminal youth--a positive choice as opposed to the Gallows--which boys were then referred to, unsurprisingly, as Scape Gallowses.

But what of young teenage officers?  The midshipmen?  For the call of the sea wasn't just heard by those on the streets, but also by the middle-class sons of merchants, doctors, lawyers, yeoman farmers, all up and down the land for whom the navy promised adventure, dashing careers, promotion, and enrichment through limitless prize money.

Many, such as the small 12 year old boy, a son of a Norfolk clergyman, who would become Admiral Lord Nelson in time, would go to sea courtesy of a relation or patron, a serving captain perhaps--someone who had position and influence in the navy and who would take them under their wing, providing them with a classroom at sea where they would learn all the necessary skills and tools to--one hoped--eventually pass their examinations and rise above the post of Mid-Shipman.

For others of the gentry classes, there was the necessity of a good naval education at one of many institutions such as the Portsmouth Naval Academy, founded in 1729, which was open to "the Sons of Noblemen and Gentlemen, who shall not be under thirteen years of age nor above sixteen at the time of their admission."

And it was here, at these Naval Academies, that one can see the breadth of the education required for a young man who hoped to succeed in the navy of Nelson's time.  It was an immensely broad plan of education, requiring no less than two years' study:  "It being intended that the Master of the Academy shall instruct Scholars in writing, arithmetic, drawing, Navigation, Gunnery, Fortification and other noteful parts of Mathematics, and also in the French Language, Dancing, Fencing and the exercise of the Firelock."  

But that wasn't all, for the Academy also required that boys engage in a whole range of technical training which they would need as potential naval officers, including, "The Description and Use of the Terrestrial Globe, Geography, Chronology, Spherics, Astronomy, Latitude, Longitude, Day's Work, and Marine Surveying."

Two of Jane Austen's brothers attended the Portsmouth Academy.  Francis Austen enrolled there in 1786 at the age of eleven, and he was a model student, going to sea two years later.  His brother, Charles, who was sent to the Academy in 1791 was not so assiduous in his studies, and he did not leave the Academy until he had served the full term of his work there, in 1794 when he was sent aboard HMS Daedelus.  Both of Austen's brothers would in due time become admirals.

Interestingly, however, the Portsmouth Academy also had its detractors, many of whom considered it, "a sink of vice and abomination, [which] should be abolished..."  And it finally closed its doors in 1806, although many other such institutions--such as the Naval Academy at Chelsea--carried on, providing unequalled training for a future within the wooden walls.

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M.M. Bennetts is a specialist in early 19th century European history and the Napoleonic wars, and is the author of two novels, May 1812 and Of Honest Fame set during the period.  A third novel, Or Fear of Peace, is due out in 2014.

For further information, please visit the website and historical blog at www.mmbennetts.com 

The Lady's Monthly Museum

by M.M. Bennetts

During the last years of the 18th century and well into the early 19th century, as female literacy and affluence increased, there was a growing body of publications designed to meet this burgeoning demand for feminine entertainment.

This is an age of when great poetry not only sells, it sells well--Byron's Childe Harold doesn't just sell well, it's a runaway best-seller along the lines of the Da Vinci Code.  Austen's Sense & Sensibility causes such a sensation, Lady Caroline Lamb's mother is writing about it, saying that everyone in the Spencer household is wholly taken up with it and talks of nothing else.

It is--make no doubt--a literate society and whilst the salons of English ladies may not reach the intellectual and political heights achieved by Frenchwomen of the period, that doesn't make them literary slouches.

The Lady's Monthly Museum or Polite Repository of Amusement and Instruction: Being an Assemblage of whatever can tend to please the Fancy, interest the Mind or exalt the Character of The British Fair.  Written "By a Society of Ladies", was one of the immensely popular periodicals published during this period.

(I did not make up that title, I can assure you.  I merely copied what is in the frontispiece of the volume at hand.)

It was published by Vernor and Hood in London, from 1798 until 1832 and provides a rather different window into the world of the early 19th century lady than one might imagine based on novels and histories about the age.

Volume five (being the one I possess) is a good example.  The contents include an article about one Miss Linwood (who apparently is a painter of some note), and the following articles titled:  Impostors, The Generous Host, Habit, a series of invented letters called The Old Woman, three chapters of a  serialised romance by the title of The Castle De Warrenne, the Editor's Reply to Mrs. Saveall's Letter--with some useful hints upon the government of the Temper, On Celibacy and Marriage, A Character, The Poor Sailor Boy, On a Passage in Sterne...and last, but not least, Jane of Flanders; Or, the Siege of Hennebonne, Scene III of a Drama in Two Acts which is continued from Volume IV (perfect for home dramatics).

(Later issues contain a great deal of poetry, a Pattern for a Carpet in Needlework, articles on the Manners of Parisian Ladies and under School of Arts, "To destroy Bugs".  And curiously enough, my copy does not have--with the exception of the needlework pattern--fashion plates or pictures of any kind.)

Equally, it's vital to bear in mind that each of these volumes had an enormous reach.  Though initially received by one household, once read, the volume would have been lent about the neighbourhood, and each of the articles probably read or heard by well over 50 women.

My favourite offering from this particular volume is the Romance--The Castle De Warrenne, possibly because it's so silly, but just as much because it provides an insight into what they were reading, what books and ideas were popular, how they spoke and wrote, and how the early 19th century female perceived themselves, how they perceived heroism and romance.

This is the opening:  "Slowly and heavily the bell of the great clock in the turret tolled out three: the gloomy mists of night were gradually dispersing, while a faint yellow, tinging the eastern atmosphere, already indicated the approach of day.

"Matilda started from her couch yet wet with tears, and which had that night afforded her but broken and imperfect slumbers.  Fearing that she had exceeded the appointed time, she hastily arrayed herself in her simple habit, and, bending mournfully over the bed of the yet sleeping Raymond, bestowed innumerable kisses on his dimpled mouth.

"'Sweet babe!' cried she in an agony of tears: 'perhaps I for the last time view they lovely countenance!--no longer shall I receive pleasure from thy innocent endearments!  Oh!  Why does Virtue demand this painful sacrifice!--My dear Lady, too,----all---all lost!!'

"Again she pressed her lips to those of the child, who opened his eyes, and, fixing them on Matilda, smiled sweetly.  The smile undid all her resolution; and, seating herself by his side, she soothed him with her accustomed tenderness, heedless of the passing time.  The clock again reminded her of her tardiness, and with reluctance, she replaced the child; and, casting a mournful look round her little apartment, departed.

"With trembling steps and perturbed heart she descended the great staircase.  All was yet profoundly still.  At the appointed spot she met Jaques, who waited (faithful to the trust reposed in him) to open the gate for her."

(I shall skip ahead to the description of our heroine now, because you won't want to miss this.)

"Matilda, at this period, had just completed her fourteenth year.  Her figure was elegantly formed, and though it had not yet attained its perfect stature, was nevertheless far from contemptible.  Her complexion, exquisitely fair, was admirably contrasted with a profusion of chestnut-coloured hair, which fell in careless ringlets over her forehead and bosom.  Her eyes were bright and piercing, and the contraction of the eyes at the temples gave an expression of archness highly fascinating.

"Her dress consisted of a gray camlet jacket and petticoat, neatly bound with black ribbon, which served to exhibit to advantage her fine shape.  A net fillet confined the superfluous hair, over which was tied a little black chip hat; and a pair of blue silk mittens completed her dress, at once simple and becoming."

It's great stuff!  She runs away to her parents' house, where she finds her father dying...plenty of opportunity to get lachrymose there...and on it goes.

And whilst we may laugh at the naivety of the writing and the overwrought sensibilities, this is exactly the sort of thing that Marianne Dashwood would have found appealing (and Willoughly too, no doubt) and which was being read (devoured) up and down the country by ladies of all ages.

No wonder Sense & Sensibility was such a hit!

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M.M. Bennetts is a specialist in early 19th century European history and the Napoleonic wars, and is the author of two novels, May 1812 and Of Honest Fame, set during the period.  A third novel, Or Fear of Peace, is due out in 2014.

For further information, please visit the website and blog at www.mmbennetts.com

Nom nom nom ~ Regency style

by M.M. Bennetts

With much of the western world so indisputably in the grip of culinary multi-culturalism, it can be hard to imagine an age in which mealtimes weren't dominated by a need for ready-meals, speed-eating, 24-hour electrical supplies, ease of world transportation, or advertising.

But so it was in early 19th century Britain.

To begin with, there was no ready supply of electricity or gas to fuel either household lighting or a stove or open hearth for cooking and baking.  Instead there were candles, made of beeswax or tallow, oil lamps, wood and coal--all of which were immeasurably more expensive comparatively than our modern equivalents.

Hence the beginning of one's day, obviously depending on social class, came with the rising sun and daylight.  Within the prosperous middle class, the gentry and aristocracy this was probably somewhere between seven and eight.

The first meal of the day was generally taken at ten.  It lasted for about an hour and it was a good solid English breakfast.  'Morning' itself then lasted until dinner at perhaps three or four in the afternoon.  Dinner went on for about two hours.

And it's important to note that the hours at which these meals are served also provide for the greatest amount of natural light in the kitchen for the preparation of the food, and also, the least number of candles required, both upstairs and down.

London society of the Beau Monde dined at five o'clock, or even later, and generally had their tea or a light supper sometime late in the evening, after returning from the theatre or in the middle of a ball...But in the country, one kept 'country hours' and thus mealtime was dictated by the hours of light and also by the fact that travelling at night was often inconvenient and certainly hazardous even on a moonlit night.

Dinner, then...

First off, this is the moment to drop those preconceptions about how many courses served one after another--five or seven or nine--was a sign of wealth and breeding.  Because English service didn't have many courses, one served after another.

For the most part, there were two courses, often called removes, plus dessert.  And the servants didn't serve each individual from a tray onto their plate either.

Oh, and there was no allotted placement either, with the exception that the host would be the first into the room, escorting the 'senior' lady, and taking his place at the foot of the table, while the hostess sat at the upper end of the table and the guest(s) of honour sat near her.

When the family or family and guests walked into the dining room, the table would already be spread with an array of dishes of every kind of food--soup, fish, game, poultry, meat, pies, sauces, pickles, vegetables, puddings both sweet and savoury, jellies and custards.  Depending upon the occasion, there might be anything from five to twenty five different dishes, all arranged symmetrically around a centre dish.

Initially, it was the host who would supervise the serving of the soup and/or carve the joints of meat that might be brought in once the soup tureens were removed.  A kind of balance was also maintained with fish--usually with salmon at one end of the table and perhaps turbot at the other.

After the meat--saddle of mutton, haunch of venison, sirloin of beef--had been carved, the gentlemen at the table helped themselves from the nearest dishes and offered it to his neighbour, or else a servant was to fetch a dish from another part of the table.

It does sound like a great deal of food, yes.  But generally, one didn't eat one's way through everything.  It seems to have been more a case of choosing three or four things that one liked from amongst the array...

To wash it all down, ale, beer, wine as well as soda water would have been served, though some gentlemen are recorded as having preferred port, hock or sherry with their food.  And importantly--for dining was a very social element in their days--once the soup had been served, both ladies and gentlemen would start drinking everyone's health round the table--'taking wine' with each other as it's called.

Once the family and guests had eaten as much as they wished from that first selection, an intermediate course of cheese, salad, raw celery and suchlike might be brought round.  Then the table was cleared, and a second remove of an equal quantity of different dishes was brought in and arranged on the table, with, just as previously, both sweet and savoury dishes included.

Finally, the guests and family having eaten their full, the table would again be cleared and the cloth removed to reveal either the polished table surface or another cloth lying beneath and the dessert was laid out.  This dessert consisted of fruits and nuts, perhaps ice-cream or sweetmeats.  And this was usually accompanied by port or Madeira.

Once the company had sat over dessert for about a quarter of an hour, the ladies would leave the dining room and retire to the drawing room, where they would embroider, chat, play the fortepiano or read aloud for about an hour.  After which point they would order their tea and coffee to be brought in, and the gentlemen, having discussed the war, the government, the iniquitous price of wheat, their efforts at sheep-rearing and other such thrilling topics over their wine, would join them.

Louis Simond, a Franco-American with an English wife, visited England in 1810-11 and left this record:  "There are commonly two courses and a dessert.  I shall venture to give a sketch of a moderate dinner for ten or twelve persons--First course [included] Oyster sauce, Fish, Spinage, Fowls, Soup, Bacon, Vegetables, Roast or Boiled Beef, Vegetables.  Second course [included] Creams, Ragout a la Francaise, Pastry, Cream, Macaroni, Cauliflowers, Game, Pastry.  Dessert [included] Walnuts, Apples, Raisins and Almonds, Cakes, Raisins and Almonds, Pears, Oranges."

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M.M. Bennetts is a specialist in early nineteenth-century British and European history, and the author of two historical novels set in the period - May 1812 and Of Honest Fame. Find out more at www.mmbennetts.com.