The Fenland Riots

by Ann Swinfen
An Editor's Choice, originally published April 15, 2014.  
Editors' note: Ann passed away on August 4, 2018

My new novel Flood takes place in the seventeenth century in a very distinctive area along the east coast of England, known as the Fens. Once a remote, slightly mysterious region of marshes and hidden villages, it attracted the attention of men greedy to get their hands on land by fair means or foul, never mind the consequences for the local inhabitants. They used the notorious method of ‘enclosure’, but in the Fens they were up against a formidable people who could not easily be bullied into submitting. When I discovered their story, I knew I had to write about it.

I had always known about enclosures, of course. From roughly Tudor times to the nineteenth century in England, land was stolen by large landowners or groups of speculators by semi-legal means. This stolen land was ‘common land’, that is, land held in common by a group of people, often the free villagers of a parish who were peasant farmers or yeomen. They had ancient rights to cultivate arable land on a shared basis, to graze their flocks and herds on local meadows, and to gather firewood and feed their pigs in neighbouring woods.

The enclosers fenced off the commons, expelled the commoners – sometimes even seizing their animals – and took possession of the land for themselves. The local people rarely had any means of redress or compensation. If they went to law, almost invariably they lost their cases, at considerable financial cost, when opposed by those with influence and deep pockets. The result is that there are very few common lands left today. Port Meadow in Oxford still has common grazing for a few Freemen who can claim ancient rights granted by Alfred the Great. The New Forest has privileges for those who are eligible.

This was a massive injustice, carried out under the guise of land improvement, or in order to create large wool-producing businesses. And in some cases it may have led to more efficient farming methods, but nevertheless it resulted in poverty, starvation and dispossession for many of its victims. The Highland Clearances in Scotland had a similar effect, although in their case small tenants were cleared off land already owned by a wealthy landowner in order to produce a larger income from sheep.

The Fens of East Anglia (stretching along the east coast of England from Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Norfolk to Lincolnshire) were from ancient times an area where land, water and marsh combined to form a rich tapestry with unique problems and rewards. The natural phenomenon of the area is the annual deposit by winter rains of rich silt from higher ground inland on to the lower arable fields of the fenlands. This produced some of the richest soil in England.

Floods would cover these fields in winter, then drain away, leaving land ready for cultivation. Between these arable fields lay a network of ancient peat bogs and waterways – some natural, some man-made over the centuries by local people who understood their special environment and the behaviour of their annual floods. They lived by arable farming, raising stock, fishing and water-fowling. The peat bogs provided fuel as well as absorbing excess water, and the rushes and willows growing along the waterways furnished materials for everything from thatch to hurdles and eel-traps.

Then, in the early seventeenth century, the ‘adventurers’ came – adventurers because they invested their money in a speculative venture. They would drain this boggy land, which they mistakenly believed to be poor and unprofitable, seize control of it, and install settlers from Holland and France as rent-paying small farmers. The return on their money would be phenomenal – it was a fool-proof investment. There were plenty of Protestant refugees from Catholic persecution on the Continent who would be only too glad of a chance to start a new life on the reclaimed lands.

And what of the local people? Many held charters of ancient rights. These were ignored in the law courts. Some tried to obtain compensation, but often found themselves imprisoned or fined instead, for attempting to oppose the speculators.

Oliver Cromwell

But they were a tough people, the fenlanders. They fought for their rights, destroying the drainage ditches and pumping mills, attacking the drainage workers and settlers. The unrest spread throughout the Fens and was one of the underlying causes of the English Civil War. The war itself brought a temporary halt to the drainage, but in the lull between the two phases of the war, it began again. And whereas the first period of drainage and enclosure had been financed by the aristocracy and the king, the new speculators were the men who had risen to power under the new government, and included Oliver Cromwell himself, who, in the past, had declared that he would protect the fenlanders.

Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder

I was drawn to the period and the events in the Fens by the persistent courage of the local people in defending their land and their customary way of life. I was also fascinated by discovering that the women fought alongside their men, some of them even being accused of being witches because of their unwomanly behaviour. Yes, this was the very period when the infamous ‘witch-finder general’, Matthew Hopkins, was roaming over this same area, instigating witch-hunts and hounding hundreds of innocent men and women to their deaths. Mostly women. But some men too. Because of the imposition of strict and unforgiving Puritan rules by Cromwell’s government, clergymen who continued to practice the established ceremonies of the Anglican church – such as baptism and church weddings – were attacked and in some cases tried and executed for witchcraft.

The more I read about the Fenland Riots, as they came to be known, the more I wanted to tell the story of these persecuted people. In my novel Flood, Mercy Bennington and her family and friends provided the voices of those forgotten seventeenth century forebears of ours.

And the irony of it all? Because the engineers brought in to drain the Fens did not understand the local terrain, their works resulted in uncontrollable floods. Water which would once have been absorbed by the marshland was pumped out into new ditches which overflowed and flooded villages and homes. Not until the nineteenth century was efficient drainage carried out, and it destroyed the peat bogs which by the present day have withered and shrunk, so that in many places the rivers are now higher than the surrounding lands, a dangerous and unsustainable situation. In recent years it has come to be realised that the marshes along the sea coast of the Fens used to provide a buffer against that other source of floods – floods from the sea. As a result, some coastal farmlands are now being allowed to revert to salt marsh, to protect the land.

I wonder what Mercy Bennington would have had to say about that?

References:
Fraser, Antonia, The Weaker Vessel: Woman’s Lot in Seventeenth Century England
Lindley, Keith, Fenland Riots and the English Revolution
Plowden, Alison, Women All on Fire: The Women of the English Civil War

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Ann Swinfen (http://www.annswinfen.com) published three novels with Random House, but The Testament of Mariam, Flood and The Secret World of Christoval Alvarez – she published herself under the imprint Shakenoak Press. Loving the whole independent publishing process, and the control it offers to authors, she thought it unlikely she would ever return to conventional publishing. Some of her short stories which previously appeared in magazines and on BBC radio are now published on Kindle. She also reissued her backlist titles as paperbacks and Kindles. In July 2018, she published The Stonemason's Tale (Oxford Medieval Mystery 6).

FLOOD @ Amazon UK
FLOOD @ Amazon US

17th & 18th Century England: Histories Informing One Another

By Philippa Jane Keyworth

During my studies at university I have become rather addicted to research. Now, don’t get me wrong, before I started studying my history degree I did do research for my novels….when I had to. You see, research always seemed a hassle when I was writing. I would be flying along, tapping out my story or scrawling it in illegible handwriting, and to stop and check a date or what my character would wear to the theatre in 1815 was just a hindrance to the flow.

There it is. I have been honest about it; research was to me a hindrance, not a love. In some ways it still is, but since starting at university, my whole view of history has changed, and with it so has my aversion to research, an activity so many other historical fiction authors love!

So what is university doing to change my view of research? Well, quite simply, it is showing me the interconnection of the past and how histories inform each other, and this has become very evident as I've looked at the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in England.

The seventeenth century saw a period of rapid population expansion. London’s population grew from 80,000 to 400,000 in the hundred years between 1550-1650. This population boom put pressure on the economy. Slow economic growth meant a lack of job opportunities and food supplies.

Seventeenth century England still relied heavily upon it’s agriculture to provide food, and a series of bad harvests in the 1620s, 1630s and 1640s saw starvation and the rural poor moving into cities in order to find either work or poor relief, thus increasing the risk of plague and civil unrest.

Though the scientific revolution took place during this century, England was still far off from expanding their exports beyond the dominating wool product, and equally far off from increasing domestic manufacturing through the use of new technologies.

The economic and social pressures were added to by the religious turmoil of the day. Catholics and Protestants were still at loggerheads, and the monarchy did not help matters. The Civil War punctuated the mid 1600s, turning fathers against sons and mothers against daughters.

And then, to top it all off, in 1688, the Glorious Revolution took place. Thank goodness it was a bloodless revolution! It was the beginning of the truly constitutional monarchy; some say the start of the Enlightenment. All in all, when taking a very broad overview, the seventeenth century is not one I would have particularly liked to make my home in, and it stands in huge contrast to its descendant, the eighteenth century.

Dorothy Marshall dubs the eighteenth century as ‘… ‘the Age of Challenge Contrast and Compromise.’’ Most of all, in comparison to many of the preceding centuries, the eighteenth was one of relative stability. Though there were bad harvests they did not repeat themselves incessantly as they had before and therefore did not cause the mass starvation of previous centuries. Outbreaks of plague began to lessen, none decimating the population as they had in the fourteenth century. The monarchy was now constitutional, established with William III, and continued without abusing the English people to the same extent of Charles I and his penchant for prerogative taxation.

Even religion changed. Enlightened thought was a new philosophy running through the courts of Europe, preaching equality between men, God as benevolent not malevolent, and pleasure as the highest achievement.

The still growing population was now supported by an expanding economy. As Beverly Lemire surmises in her article on the second hand clothes trade, the general standard of living was higher. Labourers now had surplus income not needing to be spent on essentials such as food. The new money went on luxuries like jewellery and clothing. The rise of consumerism had begun and the working and middling classes began their ascent through society.

Towards the end of the century the industrialisation of Britain began. Silk throwing factories, spinning machines, all of them made lighter work, created more jobs in cities and moved people away from their rural crafts to begin massive urbanisation.

However, the eighteenth century, like the seventeenth, was not without its turmoil. The American Revolution of 1775 saw the outworking of Enlightened thought and the loss of the English colonies. It also resulted in the bankruptcy of the French government, one of the factors that sparked the French Revolution of 1789. This in turn sparked a series of European wars.

It is narrow-minded and terribly whiggish to think that history is simply a recording of human progress, however, it is hard to view the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries without coming to similar conclusions.

What can be seen most however, is the insight into how histories interconnect and inform one another. Without the religious persecutions of the previous two centuries, one could argue the Enlightenment would not have come about. Without religious persecution, the colonies of America might never have attracted so many brilliant-minded people, nor perhaps would the colonies have cast off their kin across the Atlantic. Without the American Revolution, the French government may not have become bankrupt and thus a large factor on the run up to the French Revolution would have been taken out of play. Without the rapid expansion of the population of the seventeenth century, eighteenth century England would not have had to improve manufacturing techniques, grow industry and the economy and thus begin the industrialisation of England which would eventually lead to the Industrial Revolution.

I realise this is all conjecture on my part but it does fascinate and show that history is interconnected. So, I’ll end this post by saying, I cannot deny it, the more I see histories informing each other, the more I want to research!

References:

The Stuart Age: England 1603-1714 by Barry Coward

Eighteenth Century England by Dorothy Marshall

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Philippa Jane Keyworth, known to her friends as Pip, has been writing since she was twelve in every notebook she could find. Whilst she dabbles in a variety of genres, it was the encouragement of a friend to watch a film adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice that would start the beginning of her love affair with the British Regency. Her debut novel, The Widow's Redeemer (Madison Street Publishing, 2012), is a traditional Regency romance bringing to life the romance between a young widow with an indomitable spirit and a wealthy viscount with an unsavory reputation.

The Widow's Redeemer @ Amazon UK

The Widow's Redeemer @ Amazon USA

Mary Astell, Seventeenth Century Feminist

by Diane Scott Lewis

While researching feminist writers to bolster my early nineteenth century character’s beliefs in the rights of women, I came across numerous women who promoted rights in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. When I added these ideas into my story, a man in my critique group objected, saying women didn’t demand their due until the twentieth century. After that, I found that many people shared this narrow view. I myself was surprised by the varied women I discovered in the past who railed against their restrictive lives.

As I sought further documentation to strengthen my point, I came across this treatise by a woman in the seventeenth century named Mary Astell: Serious Proposal to the Ladies for the Advancement of their True and Greatest Interest, published in 1694.

Mary Astell was born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1666 to an upper middle-class family. Her father was a royalist Anglican who managed a coal company. As a woman, she received no formal education, as the culture of the time felt girls didn’t require any learning outside of the domestic realm. 

Fortunately for Mary, starting at the age of eight, she received an informal education from her uncle. Her uncle, an ex-clergyman, was affiliated with the Cambridg- based philosophical school which based its teachings around radical philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato, and Pythagoras.

Mary’s father died when she was twelve, leaving her without a dowry. Her family’s limited finances were invested in her brother’s higher education, and Mary and her mother were forced to move in with her aunt. After the death of her mother and aunt, Mary moved to Chelsea, London in 1688, where she was lucky enough to make the acquaintance of a circle of influential and literary women. These women, including the poet Lady Mary Chudleigh (who also published works dealing with feminist themes), helped Mary with the development and publication of her treatise.


Lady Mary Chudleigh

Mary was also in contact with the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Sancroft, who was known for charitable works. Sancroft assisted her financially and introduced her to her future publisher.


Mary Astell was one of the first Englishwomen to advocate that women were as rational as men, and just as deserving of education. Her Serious Proposal to the Ladies for the Advancement of their True and Greatest Interest presented a plan for an all-female college where women could pursue a life of the mind.

In 1700, Mary published another work: Some Reflections upon Marriage. She warned, in witty prose, of the dangers to females "...of an ill Education and unequal Marriage." She urged women to make better matrimonial choices because a disparity in intelligence and character may lead to misery. Marriage should be based on lasting friendship rather than short-lived attraction.

Influenced by Descartes, Mary Astell was known for her ability to debate freely with both men and women, and particularly for her groundbreaking methods of negotiating the position of women in society by engaging in philosophical debate rather than basing her arguments in historical evidence as had previously been attempted. One of her famous quotes stated: "If all Men are born Free, why are all Women born Slaves?"

Mary withdrew from public life in 1709 and founded a charity school for girls in Chelsea. She died in 1731, a few months after a mastectomy to remove a cancerous breast. In her last days, she refused to see any of her acquaintances and stayed in a room with her coffin, thinking only of God. She was buried in the churchyard of Chelsea Church in London.

So when reviewers—or readers—criticize a novel for promoting a heroine who acts "before her time" remember that women have been seeking liberation for centuries.

Resources: "Astell, Mary." Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2011.

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Visit Diane Scott Lewis’s website for information on her novels that depict strong women:

http://www.dianescottlewis.org


　
　

Undergarments Revealed

by Diane Scott Lewis

Undergarments Revealed, 17th and 18th Century.

Determined to do accurate research on my historical novels, the most difficult and interesting task was to find out what people wore under all that clothing. Many writers have erred in this area, as in mentioning “bloomers” in the eighteenth century, an item which didn’t come into use until the 1850’s. My interests are mainly in the eighteenth to early nineteenth century, but for this post I’m slipping back into the seventeenth as well.

While in previous years undergarments were utilitarian, to throw off the strict hand of the Puritans, under the Stuarts underclothes took on more of a sexual allure.

A man’s shirt became ruffled and more visible, with puffed sleeves tied in ribbons, to show him off as a fine gentleman.

Women’s dresses became less rigid, and cut to flaunt pretty petticoats. The petticoat, often several of them, was worn to give the outer gown a better shape, and I’m certain, important for warmth. It was often of embroidered or ruffled material in bright, attractive colors.

Poet Robert Herrick wrote in 1650: A sweet disorder in the dress kindles in clothes a wantonness.

Beneath their dresses, next to their skin, women wore chemises or smocks made of Holland, and heavily perfumed to diffuse body odors.

Sleeves were long and sometimes trimmed in lace. In the 1660’s dress sleeves were shortened to reveal the evocative chemise. Silk and linen were also popular materials because they harbored less vermin than wool. Wool fell out of favor, prompting Charles II to legislate that everyone must be buried in wool garments to promote the British wool industry.

With the extreme décolletage of the gowns, corsets or “stays” had no shoulder straps.

The corset was heavily boned with a long busk in front and was laced tightly at the back. People of the time commented that young women were foolish to want such “whalebone prisons” for fashion, and left themselves open to consumptions.

Drawers, what we know today as underwear or knickers, were worn by French women, but there’s no evidence that Englishwomen wore such an item in this era. Although a country race where women ran to win a new smock said the girls wore half-shirts and drawers. So it is still a mystery.

In the eighteenth century the hoop came into fashion again, reminiscent of the farthingale of the sixteenth century. These pushed out dress skirts and the women walked holding them to one side like a bell to reveal their fancy under-petticoats, and the shape of their legs. This must have been dangerous considering the women wore no knickers. The hoop or pannier, especially in Court dress, pushed the sides of gowns out to ridiculous proportions where women had to walk sideways to fit through doors. Later in the century, panniers became narrower and the corset lighter, lacing in the front as well as back.

Men still revealed their fancy shirts by leaving their waistcoats unbuttoned to attract the ladies. Men’s drawers are another mystery.

Some reports have them wearing such items—a loose fitting garment that tied at the waist and on each leg—but other sources say that men wore long shirts that covered their privates in their breeches. Breeches had linings of detachable washable material, which no doubt served the purpose of drawers.

During the French Revolution after 1789 the classic style pervaded, and women discarded their corsets and confining gowns for simple, high-waisted Greek style chemises. Many women dampened these dresses to show off the fact they were naked beneath. It would take the stringent Victorian age to turn fashion to a more modest level and bring back restrictive undergarments.

Information garnered from my own research and The History of Underclothes, by C. Willett and Phillis Cunnington, 1992 edition.

Check out the results of my research in my debut novel, adventure and romantic elements in eighteenth century England.

The False Light

Diane Scott Lewis has three published historical novels. Visit her website at:

http://www.dianescottlewis.org

 

 

 

 

Sarah and the Queen

SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH was one of the most outstanding women of her era.  Among the most prominent figures in the Court of Queen Anne, she had a vast influence on the politics of her day. Her name is associated with great statesmen and generals. She occupied the highest social position of any woman in England after that of the royal family. She had the ear and the confidence of the Queen. The greatest offices were virtually at her disposal. Around her we may cluster the leading characters and events of the age of Queen Anne.

The future Duchess of Marlborough, was born Sarah Jennings in 1660. At age twelve Sarah was befriended by the Duchess of York, Mary Beatrice Eleanora, Princess of Modena (an adopted daughter of Louis XIV.), who married James, brother of Charles II. Sarah was thus introduced to the Duke of York's circle, and and became the playmate of Princess Anne. Therein, Sarah, beautiful, bright, and witty, became acquainted with John Churchill, a colonel of the army and a gentleman of the bedchamber to the Duke of York. He was twenty-three years of age, a fine-looking and gallant soldier, distinguished himself at the siege of Tangier, and known in battle as the "handsome Englishman," with irresistibly pleasing manners, remarkable energy, and a coolness of judgment that was seldom known to err. Sarah and John were married in 1678.

In 1685 Charles II. died, and was succeeded by his brother the Duke of York, as James II. The new King rewarded his favorite, Colonel Churchill, with a Scotch peerage and the command of a regiment of guards, James's two daughters, the princesses Mary and Anne, now became great personages. But from mutual jealousy they did not live together very harmoniously. Meanwhile, Anne and her childhood playmate, Sarah (now Lady Churchill) remained very close.

Princess Anne was weak and generally uninteresting. But she was inordinately attached to Lady Churchill, who held a high post of honor and emolument in her household and gradually acquired an absolute ascendency over the mind of the Princess, who could not live happily without her companionship and services. Lady Churchill was at this time remarkably striking in her appearance, with a clear complexion, regular features, majestic figure, and beautiful hair, which was dressed without powder. She also had great power of conversation, was frank, outspoken, and amusing, but without much tact. The Princess wrote to her sometimes four times a day, always in the strain of humility, and seemed utterly dependent upon her. Anne was averse to reading, spending her time at cards and frivolous pleasures. She was fond of etiquette, and exacting in trifles. She was praised for her piety, which would appear however to have been formal and technical. She was placid, phlegmatic, and had no conversational gifts. She played tolerably on the guitar, loved the chase, and rode with the hounds until disabled by the gout, which was brought about by the pleasures of the table. In 1683 Anne married Prince George of Denmark, and by him had thirteen children, not one of whom survived her; most of them died in infancy.

The Princess Anne, at age thirty-seven, quietly ascended the throne, and all eyes were at once turned to her boon companion's husband the Duke of Marlborough, on whom the weight of public affairs rested. He was now fifty-three, active, wise, well poised, experienced, and generally popular in spite of his ambition and treason. He had, been a moderate Tory, but as he was the advocate of war measures, he now became one of the leaders of the Whig party. Indeed, he was at this time the foremost man in England, on account of his great talents as a statesman and diplomatist as well as general, and for the ascendency of his wife over the mind of the Queen.

But the real ruler of the land, on the accession of Anne, was the favored wife of Marlborough. If ever a subject stood on the very pinnacle of greatness, it was she. All the foreign ambassadors flattered her and paid court to her. The greatest nobles solicited or bought of her the lucrative offices in the gift of the Crown. She was the dispenser of court favors, as Mesdames de Maintenon and Pompadour were in France. She was the admiration of gifted circles, in which she reigned as a queen of society. Poets sang her praises and extolled her beauty; statesmen craved her influence. Nothing took place at court to which she was not privy. She was the mainspring of all political cabals and intrigues; even the Queen treated her with deference, as well as loaded her with gifts, and Godolphin consulted her on affairs of State. The military fame of her husband gave her unbounded éclat. No Englishwoman ever had such an exalted social position; she reigned in salons as well as in the closet of the Queen. And she succeeded in marrying her daughters to the proudest peers. Her eldest daughter, Henrietta, was the wife of an earl and prime minister. Her second daughter, Anne, married Lord Charles Spencer, the only son of the Earl of Sunderland, one of the leaders of the Whig party and secretary of state. Her third daughter became the wife of the Earl, afterwards Duke, of Bridgewater; and the fourth and youngest daughter had for her husband the celebrated Duke of Montague, grand-master of the Order of the Bath.

Thus did Sarah Jennings rise. Her daughters were married to great nobles and statesmen, her husband was the most famous general of his age, and she herself was the favorite and confidential friend and adviser of the Queen. Upon her were showered riches and honor. She had both influence and power,--influence from her talents, and power from her position. And when she became duchess,--after the great victory of Blenheim,--and a princess of the German Empire, she had nothing more to aspire to in the way of fortune or favor or rank. She was the first woman of the land, next to the Queen, whom she ruled while nominally serving her.

Lady Marlborough was both proud by nature and the force of circumstances. She became an incarnation of arrogance, which she could not conceal, and which she never sought to control. When she became the central figure in the Court and in the State, flattered and sought after wherever she went, before whom the greatest nobles burned their incense, and whom the people almost worshipped in a country which has ever idolized rank and power, she assumed airs and gave vent to expressions that wounded her friend the Queen. Anne bore her friend's intolerable pride, blended with disdain, for a long time after her accession. But her own character also began to change. Sovereigns do not like dictation from subjects, however powerful. And when securely seated on her throne, Anne began to avow opinions which she had once found it politic to conceal. Thus, the political opinions of the Queen came gradually to be at variance with those advanced by her favorite. Still, Anne long suppressed her feelings of alienation, produced by the politics and haughty demeanor of her favorite. Her treatment of the Countess continued the same as ever, full of affection and confidence. She could not break with a friend who had so long been indispensable to her; nor had she strength of character to reveal her true feelings.

However, the breach between the Queen and the Duchess gradually widened. In such a state of affairs, with the growing alienation of the Queen, it became necessary for the proud Duchess to resign her offices; but before doing this she made one final effort to regain what she had lost. She besought the Queen for a private interview, which was refused. Again importuned, her Majesty sullenly granted the interview, but refused to explain anything, and even abruptly left the room, and was so rude that the Duchess burst into a flood of tears which she could not restrain,--not tears of grief, but tears of wrath and shame.

Thus was finally ended the memorable friendship between Anne and Sarah, which had continued for twenty-seven years. The Queen and Duchess never met again. On the dismissal of the great Duke from all his offices, and the "disgrace" of his wife at court, they led a comparatively quiet life abroad.

Meanwhile the last days of Queen Anne's weary existence were drawing to a close. She was assailed with innumerable annoyances. Her body was racked with the gout, and her feeble mind was distracted by the contradictory counsels of her advisers. Any allusion to her successor was a knell of agony to her disturbed soul. She became suspicious, and alienated. She died August 1, 1714 without signing her will, by which omission Sarah was deprived of her promisedlegacy. She died childless, and the Elector George of Hanover ascended her throne.

In 1722, Sarah's husband died leaving a fortune of a million and a half pounds sterling, besides his vast estates. The Duchess of Marlborough was now the richest woman in England. The Duchess was now sixty-two, with unbroken health and inextinguishable ambition. She died, in 1744, unlamented and unloved, in the eighty-fourth year of her age, and was interred by the side of her husband, in the tomb in the chapel of Blenheim. She left a fortune to a few favored heirs, plus a costly collection of jewels,--one of the most valuable in Europe,--at a time when few noblemen at that time had over £30,000 a year.

 Compiled From Sources In The Public Domain.

Smiles and Good Reading,
Teresa
Author of the Regency Romance Novel, A Very Merry Chase
Set in early 19th century Regency England, and harking back in style to the heyday of Georgette Heyer, A Very Merry Chase is an old-fashioned comedy of manners and errors that boasts empire fashions, dashing characters, verbal sparring matches and witty repartee mingled with just a hint of mystery, danger and intrigue.

Vote for A Very Merry Chase as the I Buzz Book Club Club Selection


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