Eccentric Aristocrats

by Regina Jeffers

When we think of the aristocracy, we assume a life immersed in riches and leisure. We rarely think of how such decadence could be skewed. Meet some of those whose "quirks" set them apart from their peers.

William Thomas Beckford (1 October 1760 – 2 May 1844), was an English novelist, a profligate and consummately knowledgeable art collector and patron of works of decorative art, a critic, travel writer and sometimes politcian, reputed to be the richest commoner in England. He was Member of Parliament for Wells from 1784 to 1790, for Hindon from 1790 to 1795 and 1806 to 1820. He is remembered as the author of the Gothic novel Vathek, the builder of the remarkable lost Fonthill Abbey and Landsdown Tower ("Beckford's Tower"), Bath, and especially for his art collection.

On 5 May 1783 he married Lady Margaret Gordon, daughter of the fourth Earl of Aboyne. However, Beckford was bisexual, and was hounded out of polite English society when his letters to the Hon. William Courtenay, later 9th Earl of Devon, were intercepted by the boy's uncle, who advertised the affair in the newspapers. Beckford chose exile in the company of his wife, whom he grew to love deeply, but who died in childbirth at the age of 24. He had an affair with his cousin Peter's wife Louisa Pitt (c.1755-1791).

At Fonthill Abbey, Beckford refused the use of servants’ bells in the rooms, except the one his daughter, the Duchess of Hamilton, used. Instead, his servants were made to crouch in low, narrow ante-rooms so that they could respond immediately to his command. When traveling, he took his French cook with him to prepare his omelettes, as well as transporting his bed for a good night’s sleep. Although Beckford rarely entertained, he often order an elaborate dinner set for twelve. However, Beckford would dine in solitude, eating only one course and sending back the rest.

William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, (15 March 1779 – 24 November 1848) was a British Whig statesman who served as Home Secretary (1830–1834) and Prime Minister (1834 and 1835–1841). He is best known for his intense and successful mentoring of Queen Victoria, at ages 18–21, in the ways of politics. Historians conclude that Melbourne does not rank high as a prime minister, for there were no great foreign wars or domestic issues to handle, he lacked major achievements and enunciated no grand principles. "But he was kind, honest, and not self-seeking." Melbourne held a great dislike for carrying a watch, but with his position, he must be on time for appointments and other matters of business. Therefore, he would shout out to his servants for the time.

Adeline Louisa Maria, Countess of Cardigan and Lancastre (24 December 1824 - 25 May 1915) was the second wife of English peer James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, who led the Charge of the Light Brigade, and later the wife of the Portuguese nobleman Don António Manuel de Saldanha e Lancastre, Conde de Lancastre. She was the author of scandalous memoirs, My Recollections, published in 1909 under the name Adeline Louisa Maria de Horsey Cardigan and Lancastre, though strictly speaking she was not allowed by the rules governing the British peerage to join her former and current titles together. Her book detailed events and people coupled with gossip concerning the establishment of Victorian England. After her marriage to the Earl of Cardigan in 1858, Queen Victoria had refused to have her at court because Cardigan had left his first wife after wooing her away from her husband, Lt. Col. Christian Johnstone, a childhood friend. Adeline liked to “dress” for dinner: she would often appear as a nun or a Spanish dancer. In her final years, she kept her coffin in the hallway. Several times per day, she ordered her butler to lift her into the box to assure herself that she fit.

Henry Cavendish (10 October 1731–24 February 1810) was a British scientist noted for his discovery of hydrogen or what he called "inflammable air.” Cavendish lived the life of a recluse. He would communicate with his housekeeper by scribbling messages that he left on a table outside his bedroom. He was also known to dismiss any female servant to cross his path during the day. The female servants were to be neither SEEN nor HEARD.

George William Francis Sackville Russell, 10th Duke of Bedford (16 April 1852 – 23 March 1893) was a Liberal member of Parliament for Bedfordshire between 1875 and 1885, when the constituency was abolished. He was High Sheriff of Bedfordshire in 1889. In 1891, Russell inherited the title of Duke of Bedford, together with Woburn Abbey and several other estates, which went with it. Like Cavendish, Bedford was something of a recluse. He would dismiss any female servant he encountered after noon, when her work must be completed.

Francis Henry Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater (11 November 1756–11 February 1829), known as Francis Egerton until 1823, was a noted British eccentric, and supporter of natural theology. Egerton was known for giving dinner parties for dogs, where the dogs were dressed in the finest fashions of the day, down to fancy miniature shoes. Each day Egerton wore a new pair of shoes, and he arranged the worn shoes into rows, so that he could measure the passing time. An animal lover, Egerton kept partridges and pigeons with clipped wings in his garden, allowing him to shoot them despite failing eyesight. Egerton never married, and upon his death, his title became extinct.

William John Cavendish Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck, 5th Duke of Portland (12 September 1800 – 6 December 1879), styled Lord William Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck before 1824 and Marquess of Titchfield between 1824 and 1854, was a British aristocrat eccentric who preferred to live in seclusion. He had an underground maze excavated under his estate at Welbeck Abbey near Clumber Park in North Nottinghamshire.

Welbeck Abbey contains none of the normal show of grandeur. The rooms were stripped of portraits and tapestries. The rooms were painted pink and touted bare parquetry floors, with no furniture other than a commode. The Duke lived in 5 rooms in the west wing. They, too, were sparsely furnished. The 22 acres’ kitchen gardens had braziers within the walls to help ripen the fruit. A riding house (396 feet x 108 feet x 50 feet) was lit by 4000 gas jets. The Duke’s stables contained 100 horses, but he never rode them in the riding house. One can also find a roller skating rink.

Underground, one finds a series of tunnels and usable rooms. Totaling 15 miles, the tunnels connected the underground rooms to those above ground level. There was a 1000 yards tunnel that connected the house to the riding house. These were not narrow crawl-through structures. Instead, a person could stand upright within them. One tunnel, 1.25 miles long, ran northeast from the coach house to South Lodge. Reportedly, within, carriages going in opposite directions could pass each other safely. Domed skylights and gaslights illuminated the tunnel.

Like those above ground, those underground chambers were painted pink. A great hall, which served as a chapel, a portrait gallery, and occasionally as a ballroom, was 160 feet long and 63 feet wide. Reportedly, the ballroom was equipped with a hydraulic lift that could carry 20 guests from the surface to the ballroom. The ceiling was painted to represent a setting sun. One could also find a 250-foot long library, an observatory with a large glass roof, and a vast billiards room.

Cameos, Silhouettes and Cartes de Visite

by Debra Brown

Once upon a time there were no cameras. Really! Not even cell phone cameras. People wanted images of their loved ones, or of themselves to share. No doubt sketches and carvings were made from earliest times on whatever materials could be obtained. The likeness of the person would depend upon the skills of the artist and other factors, such as materials.

This is a sketch of Jane Austen from A Memoir of Jane Austen in 1870. It is based on a drawing done by her sister Cassandra, which contemporaries did not consider to be a successful likeness.

Perhaps Cassandra's watercolor is more accurate.








Skilled artists were sought by those who could afford their services. One early form of likeness is the cameo. Ancient cameos were often made from semiprecious gemstone, usually onyx or agate, where two contrasting colors meet. Less expensive cameos are made from shell or glass. Artistic cameos were made in Greece as far back as the 3rd Century BC. They were very popular amongst the Augustus family of ancient Rome.

Shown here is a cameo portrait of Augustus. Sardonyx cameo; gilt silver mount with pearls, sapphires and red glass beads, 16-17th centuries. Photography: © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons


Revivals in popularity of the cameo have occurred periodically. The first such revival in Britain was during the reigns of George III and later his granddaughter, Queen Victoria, to the extent that they were being mass produced during the latter half of the 19th Century.

French Finance Minister Etienne de Silhouette cut black profiles as a hobby. The cuttings were originally called profile miniatures or shades. The name silhouette was in use by the early 19th Century. These provided family members with a likeness that was much less expensive than a painted miniature, and it is thought that Silhouette's name became associated with them because of his severe economic policies. The likeness could be cut by a skilled artist in minutes using paper and scissors. At times, gold accents and colored paint were used to add interest. The cost of a silhouette could run from a shilling to more than a guinea.

Resort and spa towns came to have at least one silhouettist. The daughter of King George III, Princess Elizabeth, was an amateur in the field. Materials used included paper, wax, glass or plaster. More costly silhouettes were framed. A famous English artist was John Miers (1756-1821), who began his career in Liverpool and then moved to a London studio at No. 111 Strand in 1788. He charged a guinea per silhouette. Some that he did on ivory came to be used in rings, lockets and bracelets.

Silhouette presumed to be Jane Austen. 4 in. x 3 1/8 in. National Portrait Gallery, London, 1810.

Scherenschnitt (Silhouette) von Ferdinand Ernst von Waldstein in Ludwig van Beethovens Stammbuch











A silhouette might be done, along with a poem, to remember a departed loved one.

A proliferation of unskilled artists took up the lucrative trade, decreasing its popularity. Then another advent threatened the silhouette medium: commercial photography. In 1854, a Parisian photographer named Andre Disderi patented a multilensed camera which produced eight small likenesses on one large glass negative. The resulting print was cut, the portraits were trimmed, and they were then mounted on cards measuring two and a half by four inches. This was the usual size of a visiting card, and so these photos were dubbed cartes de visite. In 1859, Napoleon III had his photograph made up in this manner, initiating a craze throughout Europe, and then in America, called cardomania. The craze reached England in 1861 when J.E. Mayall took carte de visite portraits of the royal family. Soon, studios opened in every town. A photographer in Bath reportedly sold between sixty and seventy thousand cards in a single year.

By the third quarter of the 19th Century, hardback, leather-covered photograph albums with stiff cardboard pages, often decorated with drawings, were to be found in most Victorian parlors. Cartes de visite featuring famous personalities were added to these family albums, with crowds gathering whenever shop windows displayed the latest. Actors and society, political, clerical and military figures, and especially the royal family, were in great demand. When the prince consort died, not less than seventy thousand of his cartes were ordered from Marion and Company of Regent Street. Cartes de visite were eventually made in larger, cabinet print size.

Thomas Stevens introduced something new in 1879- the silk-woven picture or Stevengraph. Two scenes of local interest were woven on a loom. These sold for a shilling, with new pictures being issued once a month. Portraits were later done in this manner, featuring members of the royal family, sportsmen of the day and so on. By the early twentieth century, even silk-woven postcards portraying famous passenger liners were sold as souvenirs to passengers aboard the ships.

***

Debra Brown is the author of The Companion of Lady Holmeshire, an early Victorian mystery with sweet romance. Watch for her second novel, For the Skylark, in 2012.

Website

1. The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in Regency and Victorian England From 1811-1901 by Kristine Hughes.

2. Wikipedia

3. Pictures from Wikipedia and Wikimedia.

King Charles II, a Randy Rowley Monarch

by Katherine Pym

King Charles II loved women. He loved sex. Most historical fiction and nonfiction books state this. 

He had a wife who could not go full term in her pregnancies, which Charles mourned, but he received solace throughout the years with his many mistresses.  

He had, according to my count, fourteen mistresses and fourteen illegitimate children. A few mistresses gave King Charles II a ‘quiver full’ of children, whilst others gave him little or none.  

With so many mistresses (sometimes more than one at a time), the king enlisted Sir Henry Bennet, 1^st Earl of Arlington, to help. Charles used Bennet as the procurer and management of the royal mistresses to keep things steady in the royal bedchamber.

Not always satisfied with his mistresses or wife, women from local surrounds were hustled up the privy stairs to Randy Rowley’s bedchamber. There they stayed a few hours for romps and frolics, then sent packing.

The king had problems with his mistresses. He had been heard to complain how frustrating it was for them to find other lovers or go back to their husbands. Apparently, what was good for the goose was not so good for the gander.

We know of his mistresses Barbara Villiers, Nell Gwynn, and Louise de Kéroualle (whom the king called ‘Fubbs’ which meant chubby). But I like the following, either more interesting or lesser known:

According to Alison Weir, the mother of Charles’s firstborn was Marguerite de Carteret, the daughter of George de Carteret of Jersey in the Channel Islands. Born 1646, the child was christened James, his official father being Jean de la Cloche. He is often referred to as James de Carteret. As a Protestant, James was educated in France and the Netherlands. Records state he died 1667.

Lucy Walter, who Charles met whilst in The Hague. John Evelyn described her as ‘brown, beautiful, bold, but insipid’. Born in a Welsh Royalist family, she was with Charles in 1648, and gave birth to a son also named James in 1649, only months after Charles I had been beheaded. Lucy died in Paris 1658, they believe from syphilis.

Lucy’s child was known as James Scott, originally called James Crofts or James Fitzroy. His royal father ‘recognized him’ in 1663, and the Crown bestowed upon him the title: Duke of Monmouth. This son turned leader when he tried to unseat his uncle, King James II, who openly practiced Roman Catholicism, whilst, he, the Duke of Monmouth was Protestant, and son of Charles II. He felt he was the rightful heir to the throne. The Duke of Monmouth was executed as a traitor 1685 after the battle of Sedgemoor.

Elizabeth Killigrew the sister of Thomas Killigrew of theatre renown. Thomas and his sister spent time in exile with the king. Thomas became Master of Revels while Elizabeth was maid-of-honor to Charles’s mother. Married to Francis Boyle, 1^st Viscount Shannon, Elizabeth cuckolded him. She gave birth to a Charles’s daughter in 1650, named Charlotte Jemima Henrietta Maria FitzRoy.

Catherine Pegge, Lady Greene, came from the Pegge family of Yeldersley in Derbyshire. She bore Charles II a son named Charles FitzCharles in 1657.

Hortense Mancini, Duchess of Mazarin. This woman’s life is one made for a rollicking historical fiction novel. She was born 1646 as Ortensia in Rome to Baron Lorenzo Mancini, an Italian aristocrat. After the baron died, Hortense’s mother took her children to Paris where her brother, Cardinal Mazarin, lived in wealth and power.

Hortense was thirteen when she met Charles in exile. He proposed to her, but Hortense’s uncle, Cardinal Mazarin, refused the suit believing Charles had no prospects. At fifteen, Hortense was married to one of the wealthiest men in Europe, but she was young and wild. She found the marriage too constricting. At sixteen, Hortense launched into a lesbian affair with Sidonie de Courcelles.

The marriage failed, and Hortense over the years became a courtesan to wealthy nobility. By the late 1670’s she found herself in England and replaced Louise as Charles’s mistress. Due to her promiscuity and open bisexuality (she had affairs other than with the king, which irritated him), it didn’t take long to lose favor with Charles II. Once she was cast adrift, Charles went back to Barbara Palmer. Although never again intimate, the king and Hortense remained friends.

Other mistresses less known and some alleged:

Winifred Wells - one of the Queen's Maids of Honour

Jane Roberts – daughter of a clergyman

Mary Sackville – the possible illegitimate daughter of Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset and 1st Earl of Middlesex

Elizabeth Fitzgerald - the second wife of the 18th earl of Kildare

Elizabeth Berkeley - née Bagot, Dowager Countess of Falmouth, and widow of Charles Berkeley, 1^st Earl of Falmouth

Mrs Knight - a famous singer

Christabella Wyndham - the royal nurse who had once been Charles’s wet nurse.  

Katherine Pym is the author of several historical novels set in London 1660's. For more information, see http://www.amazon.com/Katherine-Pym/e/B004GILIAS

Giveaway: Books by Elizabeth Chadwick

Elizabeth is giving away two copies of the winner's choice of Lady of the English or To Defy A King. Read about the books HERE, and then you will be prompted to return here to enter by commenting.

Please be sure to leave contact information.

The Death of Henry VIII: Demolishing the Myths

By Nancy Bilyeau

No one would have called Sir Anthony Denny a brave man, but on the evening of January 27, 1547, the Gentleman of the Privy Chamber performed a duty the most resolute would recoil from: He informed Henry VIII that “in man’s judgment you are not like to live.”

            The 55-year-old king, lying in his vast bed in Westminster Palace, replied he believed “the mercy of Christ is able to pardon me all my sins, yes, though they were greater than they be.” When asked if he wanted to speak to any “learned man,” King Henry asked for Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer “but I will first take a little sleep. And then, as I feel myself, I will advise on the matter.”

            Cranmer was sent for but it took hours for the archbishop to make his way on frozen roads. Shortly after midnight, Henry VIII was barely conscious, unable to speak. The faithful Cranmer always insisted that when he asked for a sign that his monarch trusted in the mercy of Christ, Henry Tudor squeezed his hand.

            At about 2 a.m. on January 28th Henry VIII died, “probably from renal and liver failure, coupled with the effects of his obesity,” says Robert Hutchinson in his 2005 book The Last Days of Henry VIII: Conspiracies, Treason and Heresy at the Court of the Dying Tyrant.

            It was a subdued end to a riotous life. The sources for what happened that night are respected, though they are secondary, coming long after the event: Gilbert Burnet’s History of the Reformation of the Church of England (1679) and John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments (1874).

            Yet there are other stories told of the death and funeral of Henry VIII. He was perhaps the most famous king in English history, and so it is no surprise that in books and on the Internet, some strange or maudlin words and ghoulish acts have attached themselves to his demise.

            It is time to address them, one by one.

            Myth 1: “Monks, monks, monks”

            Henry VIII broke from Rome and made himself the head of the Church of England, dissolving the monasteries. The monks and friars and nuns faithful to the Pope lost their homes and were turned out on the road. Those who defied the king and denied the royal supremacy, such as the Carthusian martyrs, were tortured and killed.  

            Did the king regret it at the end? “He expired soon after allegedly uttering his last words: ‘Monks! Monks! Monks!’" says the Wikipedia entry for Henry VIII. It’s a story that has popped up in books too. The major source for it seems to be Agnes Strickland, a 19^th century poet turned historian who penned the eight-volume Lives of the Queens of England from the Norman Conquest, and Lives of the Queens of Scotland, and English Princesses. Strickland writes: The king “was afflicted with visionary horrors at the hour of his departure; for that he glanced with rolling eyes and looks of wild import towards the darker recesses of his chamber, muttering, ‘Monks—monks!’ ”

            More on Strickland later. But when it comes to visions of cowled avengers glowering in the corner, it seems certain that this is an embellishment, an attempt at poetic justice. But not something that happened. Most likely at the final hour Henry regretted nothing.

Myth 2: “Cried out for Jane Seymour”

            Another story is that while dying Henry VIII cried out for his third wife, the long dead Jane Seymour. It supports the idea that Jane, the pale lady-in-waiting who rapidly replaced Anne Boleyn, was the love of Henry’s life. He did, after all, request to be buried next to her. And whenever a family portrait was commissioned after 1537, Jane was shown sitting beside him, rather than one of the wives he was actually married to. But Henry VIII does not quite deserve his reputation for being impossible to please when it comes to women. He actually had a low bar for marital success: birth of a baby boy. Jane produced the son who became Edward VI—doing so killed her—and thus moved to the top of the pecking order. 

Whether he actually loved Jane more than the five other spouses (not to mention those alluring mistresses) is best left to screenwriters. But one thing seems certain: Henry VIII did not cry for his third wife while expiring. There is no historical source for it.

           

Myth 3: “And the dogs will lick his blood”

            The most macabre story of all supposedly happened weeks after the king died but before he was lowered into the crypt next to Jane Seymour in St. George’s Chapel.  On February 14th, the king’s corpse was transported in a lead coffin from Westminster to Windsor; the procession of thousands lasted two days. There was a large funeral effigy on top of the coffin, complete with crown at one end and crimson velvet shoes at the other, that, one chronicler said fearfully, was so realistic “he seemed just as if he were alive.”

            At the halfway mark, the coffin was housed in Syon Abbey, once one of England’s most prestigious religious houses. That is fact. But the rest is suspect. Because of an accident or just the undoubted heaviness of the monarch’s coffin—Henry VIII weighed well over 300 pounds at his death—there was supposedly a leak in the night, and either blood or “putrid matter” leaked onto the floor. When men arrived in the morning, a stray dog was seen licking under the coffin, goes the tale.

            This hearkened to an unforgettable Easter Sunday sermon in 1532 before the king and his soon-to-be-second-wife, Anne Boleyn. Friar William Peto, provincial of the Observant Franciscans and a fiery supporter of first wife Katherine of Aragon, compared Henry VIII to King Ahab, husband of Jezebel. According to Scripture, after Ahab died, wild dogs licked his blood. Peto thundered that the same thing would happen to the English king.

            Gilbert Burnet is the main source for the coffin-leaking story. A Scottish theologian and bishop of Salisbury, he is today considered reliable—except when he’s not. One historian, while praising Burnet’s book as an “epoch in our historical literature,” fretted that “a great deal of fault has been found—and, no doubt, justly—with the inaccuracy and general imperfection of the transcripts on which his work was largely founded and which gave rise to endless blunders.” One of Burnet’s most well known contributions to Tudor lore was that a disappointed Henry VIII described fourth wife Anne of Cleves as a “Flanders mare.” Author Antonia Fraser, in particular, writes sternly that Burnet had “no contemporary reference to back it up” in her book The Six Wives of Henry VIII.

             What seems undeniable is that the foundation Burnet created, Agnes Strickland built on. Indeed, she raised a whole Gothic mansion in her own description of that night in Syon: “The King, being carried to Windsor to be buried, stood all night among the broken walls of Syon, and there the leaden coffin being cleft by the shaking of the carriage, the pavement of the church was wetted with Henry’s blood. In the morning came plumbers to solder the coffin, under whose feet—‘I tremble while I write it,’ says the author—‘was suddenly seen a dog creeping, and licking up the king’s blood. If you ask me how I know this, I answer, William Greville, who could scarcely drive away the dog, told me and so did the plumber also.’

             “It appears certain that the sleepy mourners and choristers had retired to rest, after the midnight dirges were sung, leaving the dead king to defend himself, as best as he might, from the assaults of his ghostly enemies, and some people might think they made their approaches in a currish form. It is scarcely, however, to be wondered that a circumstance so frightful should have excited feelings of superstitious horror, especially at such a time and place; for this desecrated convent had been the prison of his unhappy queen, Katherine Howard, whose tragic fate was fresh in the minds of men; and by a singular coincidence it happened that Henry’s corpse rested there the very day after the fifth anniversary of her execution.”

              Putting aside Strickland’s Bram Stoker-esque prose, there’s the question of whether such a ghastly thing could even occur. Sixteen-century embalmment did not call for completely draining a corpse of blood, it is true. And medical experts say it is possible that fluids circulate 17 days after death.

              But Strickland’s fervent connections to not only Friar Peto’s sermon but also Syon’s monastery past—echoing the “Monks, monks, monks” poetic justice—and the (near) anniversary of Katherine Howard’s death make it seem likely that this was a case of too good a story to resist.

               No one disturbed the coffin of the indomitable King Henry VIII—not even ghosts in “currish form.”

Nancy Bilyeau is the author of a trilogy of Tudor-era historical thriller.  THE CROWN, published in nine countries, was shortlisted for the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award. The protagonist is a Dominican novice taking on the most important men of the era.  THE CHALICE was published in 2013 and won the RT award for Best Historical Mystery. The third and final book in the series, THE TAPESTRY, was a finalist for the Daphne du Maurier award for Best Historical Suspense. For more information, go to www.nancybilyeau.com

De Chemant and His Porcelain Teeth

by Wanda Luce

brought to you from the BDA (British Dental Association) and posted by Wanda Luce, Regency author

Toward the end of the 18th century, people were becoming dissatisfied with ivory dentures, and experiments began with porcelain and the production of "incorruptible" dentures. The whole of the denture, teeth and gums, were made of china. In their favour they were more hygienic, however they were brittle, the colours weren’t very realistic and generally they did not fit well. They were the subject of a good deal of hilarity at the time. People made much fun of them as depicted in this picture by Thomas Rowlandson. It shows the French dentist, Nicholas Dubois de Chemant, demonstrating his porcelain dentures on a buxom lady to a potential client who inspects them through his double lorgnette.

Nicholas Dubois de Chemant (1753-1824) was an important dentist in Paris before the revolution of 1789. He perfected the manufacture of his mineral paste, or porcelain dentures, which he claimed were an improvement on the more usual ivory teeth as they did not decay in the mouth. Alexis Duchateau (1714-1792) invented the process in 1744, but De Chemant was able to overcome the problem of shrinkage during firing. King Louis XVI granted him an inventor’s patent. However, in 1792 he fled to England to escape the French Revolution.

On arrival in England he, was granted a 14-year patent for the exclusive manufacture of his invention and established himself in 2 Firth Street, near Soho Square, London. The Wedgwood Company supplied him with the porcelain paste the process needed and by 1804, he claimed to have made 12,000 false teeth. It was at the height of his fame that Rowlandson completed this etching in 1811.

 In earlier years, dentures were either authentic teeth from another person or replicas made of ivory.  These decayed easily.  Below are some pictures of false teeth from before the 20th century. This set here belonged to Arthur Richard Dillon (1721-1806), Archbishop of Narbonne in France.

Some bought into the idea of tooth tranplantation.  Often the poor allowed their healthy teeth to be extracted for a few coins, so they could be transplanted into the mouths of the toothless rich.  Often children were subjected to this kind of abuse as is depicted in this caricature.

How dreadful it must have been to lose one's teeth.   Below are a few pictures of old dentures that will make you cringe. I am so grateful to live in the 21st century!!!  (So far I have all of my own teeth, but...someday I might not be so fortunate.)

Check out the partials to the left.

Below is an awkward looking pair.

Thank you for reading.

Wanda Luce, Regency romance author

http://www.wandaluce.blogspot.com/

Lady Jane Grey: Royal Tragedy - Royal Pawn Part I

Lady Jane Grey was a young lass of fifteen who had the honor of being the Queen of England for a period of nine days, and was beheaded for it.

Jane was a cousin to young King Edward VI, crowned successor to Henry VIII, at the tender age of nine years. Within a very few years of his crowning,it became obvious that young Edward would soon pass from this earth due to a infirmity. Edward reigned at a time of political unrest as Henry the VIII's newly established Protestant religion sought to wrest all power and prominence from the followers of the Roman Catholic religion.

In seeking a successor for young Edward, the Protestants sought to ensure that the throne did not pass to his elder sister, Mary, a staunch Romanc Catholic, who would, it was feared, restore ascendency to the Roman Catholic church--not to mention, perhaps even going so far as to persecute and excecute the Protestants. A more acceptable heir--at least to the Protestants--was to be found in Mary's younger sister Elizabeth, a girl of only twenty, who just happened to be a Protestant.  Unfortunately, setting aside an older sister for a younger one would have been impossible, and so the Protestant nobles settled on young Jane Grey, thereby setting the stage for a tragedy.

Jane was the eldest daughter of the Duke of Suffolk, and as such was a titled lady in her own right. Through her mother, she was also a cousin to young Edward and his sisters, and had Mary and Elizabeth not existed, Jane would have been next in line for young Edward's throne. It had been initially proposed that Jane and Edward be married, but this scheme was dropped due to Edward's ill health and imminent death. Again, unfortunately for Jane, young Edward was still able to be manipulated by his guardian, the Duke of Northumberland. He persuaded Edward that Lady Jane must reign after him, for if she did not England would suffer; and Edward, who loved the Protestant religion, consented. He made a will stating that Lady Jane was to be Queen instead of his sisters Mary and Elizabeth. Of course, he had no right to do this, for a king cannot say who is to reign after him; the throne must go to the next heir. But Northumberland thought if he and all the Protestant nobles declared Lady Jane Queen, they could force the people of England to acknowledge her. To ensure that he retained power, Northumberland further persuaded Edward to consent to the marriage of Lady Jane to Northumberland's only son, young Lord Guildford Dudley.

According to legend, Lady Jane had lived very quietly up to this time; she was a gentle little girl who loved her books, and never thought of thrones and kings and queens. When she was quite young she could speak French and Italian, wrote Latin, and understood Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic. This was all the more wonderful because in those days ladies were not supposed to know very much; if they could do beautiful tapestry work and ride and sing a little, it was considered quite enough. When asked one time, why she read instead of joining her sisters at play, Jane is said to have replied that she loved books, and they gave her much more pleasure than the things in which people usually tried to find pleasure. When further asked, how she had managed to learn so much, she answered:

'Sir, God hath blessed me with sharp and severe parents and a gentle schoolmaster; for when I am in the presence of either father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry or sad, be sewing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do it, as it were, in such weight, measure, and number, even as perfectly as the world was made, or else I am so sharply taunted and cruelly threatened—yea, presently sometimes with pinches, nips, and bobs, and so cruelly disordered, that I think myself in hell until the time come that I go to Mr. Aylmer, who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, with such fair allurements to learning, that I think all the time as nothing that I am with him; and thus my book hath been so much my pleasure, and bringeth daily to me more pleasure and more, that in respect of it all other pleasures in very deed be but trifles and very troubles to me.'

Lady Jane knew that her cousin Edward was ill, and it must have grieved her very much; for she was fond of him, and being just the same age, they had learnt the same lessons together.She was however, probably quite surprised to be suddenly told that she must hurriedly marry the son of his guardian, young Guildford Dudley. When Edward died, shortly thereafter, Jane was not told of it until she received a message from her father-in-law, the Duke of Northumberland, ordering her to go to his great house, not far from London. Jane obeyed, most probably, never once guessing the truth of what was going to happen or why she was wanted.  Thus, she was probably quite surprised to arrive and have Northumberland, her own father, and a group of Protestant lords kneeling before her, as they informed her her that her young cousin Edward was dead, and that she must succeed him as Queen of England. Legend tells us that poor Lady Jane was so shocked and startled that she fainted away. When she came round again they told her she must be obedient and do as they told her. She is said to have pleaded with them,claiming that Mary must be Queen, and that for herself she was so young—only sixteen; and she did not care to be Queen, but only wanted to live a quiet life with her husband, Lord Dudley. But they argued with her, and told her she was a coward; that it was for the good of England, and that if she refused she would be wicked; and so she consented.

From that moment forward, her life was changed. A beautiful barge was waiting for Lady Jane in front of Sion House, and she stepped into it, and was rowed down the river through London to the Tower. When Lady Jane entered the Tower the man who was then Lord Treasurer of England came to her, and, kneeling down, offered her the crown of England. Afterwards, Northumberland and his party lost no time in sending men all about London to cry out that Lady Jane Grey was now Queen of England.

Nine days later, young Jane was dethroned, and within a few months, both she and her handsome young husband were beheaded.

I'll share the story of Jane's imprisonment and execution on March 2, 2012.

 Compiled From Sources In The Public Domain.


Teresa Thomas Bohannon,
MyLadyWeb, Women's History, Women Authors
Regency Romance A Very Merry Chase
Historical Fantasy Shadows In A Timeless Myth.

LOVE IS BLIND ~ BRIDELOPE ~ The earliest word for a marriage custom

by Maggi Andersen

BRIDELOPE dates back to A.D. 950 when it was called brydlopa. Part of this custom, called the ‘run for the bride-door,’ was an ancient tradition in which the bride was both symbolically and physically swept off on horseback to her husband’s home by him and sometimes a helper who was later known as the ‘best man’.

The Anglo-Saxon root word wedd (‘to gamble, wager’) first referred to livestock or other payment by the groom to the bride’s father, as a more civilized alternative to abduction.

In the 17th Century, before it became associated with romantic images, elopement was a legal term for the act of a woman who leaves her husband and ‘dwells with the adulterer, by which she shall lose her dower’. (Thomas Blount Glossographia 1656.)

As a symbol of resistance, the well-prepared Saxon bride’s wedding attire often included knives, which she ‘gracefully hung from her girdle’.

John Heywood listed other bridal equipment in his 1545 work The Four Ps:

Silke swathbonds, ribbands, and sleeve-laces,

Girdles, knives, purses and pin-cases,

Fortune dothe give these knives to you,

To cut the thred of love if’t be not true.

Bridesmaids were originally a maid’s closest friends who might attempt to defend her from an unwanted groom and make sure she didn’t panic and run off, especially in arranged marriages. In a custom known as ‘charming the path,’ the bride was hidden or disguised when the groom’s party came for her.

‘This was a common practice at old-fashioned weddings in Wales, among other places. The bride is generally expected to make a great show of resistance to her departure, and to lament loudly.’

(Burne, Charlotte S. The Handbook of Folklore. London 1883)

As late as the 18^th Century, a custom that often accompanied weddings in Wales was a race by the male members of the wedding party to the couple’s future residence, with food or a silk scarf (originally the bride’s garter, a potent love charm) typically awarded to the winner.

At Scottish country weddings, a related custom, to ‘ride the brose,’ with the first to arrive receiving a ‘cog of brose,’ or ‘good fat broth made for the occasion.’ (John Jamieson. An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language 1808)

 ‘The boast of the winner was how far on with the brose he was before the rest of the company arrived.’

My historical romance The Reluctant Marquess is a marriage of convenience story, set during the Georgian era. It is released on 8^th March by Knox Robinson Publishing. You can order the paperback now from Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Reluctant-Marquess-Maggi-Andersen/dp/1908483091/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328069811&sr=8-1

Author website: http://www.maggiandersenauthor.com

Author Blog: http://www.maggiandersen.blogspot.com

Source: Forgotten English Jeffrey Kacirk, Quill William Morrow NY.S

Further reading:

Thomas Blount recognized that many of the new words entering the English language were those spoken in the street. He saw that tradesmen and merchants were collecting words as well as wares on their journeys overseas. And therefore many of these new words, such as coffee, chocolate, drapery, boot, omelette or balcony, were those used in shops or other public places - drinking houses, tailors, shoemakers or barbers.

Charlotte Burne (1850–1923) served the Folklore Society (FLS) for forty years. She was editor of the massive Shropshire Folklore (1883–6), and the second revised edition of the FLS's only official guide, The Handbook of Folklore (1914). She authored over seventy folklore papers, notes and reviews in Folklore and its predecessors, as well as several articles in newspapers and magazines; she was the first woman editor of this journal (1900–08) and the first woman President of the FLS (1909–10). This appreciation is the first part of a two-part study of her life and works. The second part will be a provisional bibliography of her published works.

John Jamieson FRSE (3 May 1759 – 12 July 1838) was a Scottish minister of religion, lexicographer, philologist and antiquary.