Gertrude Jekyll

by M.M. Bennetts

She wasn't a queen or a princess.  Nor was she a pawn.  She was denied neither education nor legal standing.  Yet through her extra-ordinary life, her quietly pioneering work, and her writings, she has exerted more practical influence over how the 20th century British viewed their surroundings and what they did with them than any person before or since.  And she was a Victorian woman.

Her name is Gertrude Jekyll (pronounced to rhyme with treacle).

She was born on 29 November 1843 (just five years into Victoria's reign), the fifth of seven children born to Captain Edward Jekyll, who was an officer in the Grenadier Guards, and his wife, Julia Hammersley.  The family was well-to-do, though not titled, and living at 2 Grafton Street in Mayfair at the time of her birth.

When she was nearly five, the Jekyll family moved to a sprawling country house near Guildford in Surrey, called Bramley House.  Situated just off the Horsham Road, in the fertile Wey Valley, the house was surrounding by lush green meadows where cattle grazed in fields edged and speckled with cow parsley and buttercups.

And there, with her many siblings, Gertrude was encouraged to wander first in the garden and latterly, farther afield, exploring the park with its streams, woods and mill-ponds, climbing trees, playing cricket with her brothers, and learning first-hand all about plants, flowers and the landscape--studying the outcrops of sandstone, eroded by time, the heaths, the tree roots.  She also had the benefit of good governesses who taught her languages, music and art and in this 'age of liberal indulgence' her parents elected for her to continue to study all three.

As she matured into young womanhood, her greatest desire was to be an artist, so in 1861, her parents enrolled her at the South Kensington School of Art to study painting.  Jekyll was among the first handful of women to be taught at art school--where she studied the works of great artists, but most especially the work of J.M.W. Turner and studying his use of colour.

In the autumn of 1863, she travelled to Corfu, Crete, Rhodes, Athens and Constantinople--drawing and sketching.

Upon her return home, she met John Ruskin, and through him came into contact with that new wave of British artistry, the Arts and Crafts Movement.  She visited William Morris, went to lectures by Ruskin, met Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.  Through Morris's influence, she began design and embroidery, as well as beginning to work in metal and wood.  Indeed, her diary for these years mentions frequent meetings with the greats of Victorian art such as Frederick Leighton and G.W. Watts.

And year after year, she travelled abroad--to France, Italy or Spain.  She spent a winter in Algiers.  She visited the great gardens of Europe and the Near East.

By the time she was thirty, she had gained a reputation for 'carving, modelling, house-painting, carpentry, smith's work, repousse work, gilding, wood-inlaying, embroidery, gardening and all manner of herb and flower knowledge and culture'.

In 1868, the family had left Bramley Park to move to a house in Berkshire that Edward Jekyll had inherited.  But when he died in 1876, the family members who remained at home decided to return to Surrey.  They bought land high on Munstead Heath, near Godalming and the Wey valley and hired an architect to build them a house there.

And it was there that Gertrude Jekyll really began to come into her own as she spent more and more of her time creating the garden there at Munstead.  Indeed, within four years, the garden was already sufficiently famous to merit a visit from the first President of the National Rose Society, Dean Hole, and from William Robinson, the editor of The Garden.

Jekyll then bought a plot on the other side of the lane from Munstead Heath, and there developed the ideas that would transform the gardening culture of Victorian England--from one of formality and carpet bedding as she called it to a marriage of colour and contrast, of cool to balance hot, of shape and scent, and year-round beauty.

Over the course of her life, she wrote thirteen books on gardens and gardening, and made plans for or helped to make the plans for some 350 gardens.

Her advice often flew in the face of what had been accepted practice for decades and replaced it with a hands-on love of gardening, of the processes of creating a garden, from double-digging the beds to arranging leaf-shapes to compliment each other, to planting herbaceous perennials in naturalistic drifts of colour as a painter--indeed painting a picture with plants--and using all that she had gleaned from her years studying art.  

Among her favourite colour dynamics was the creation of a long and deep border of graduated harmonies that set pink against grey foliage at each end then fused into white flowering plants which bled into pale yellow into pale blue, then into darker blues punctuated by stronger yellows, oranges and vibrant reds back into the oranges, yellows and on until the softened misty edges of palest pink against the silvery greys of catmint, stachys and artemisia.  It was a blending and use and understanding of colour worthy of Turner himself.

Jekyll was 46 when she first met the young architect Edwin Lutyens, and their collaboration of house and garden design and decoration is one of the significant partnerships of the early 20th century.   Though whilst many of their houses and gardens remain, some to be ruined and then restored, many of them have disappeared, so it is through her prolific and delightful writings and garden plans that she is best known to us today.

Always blunt-spoken, never shying from controversy, her writings are practical and witty, honest, engaging and wry.  (She used to refer to the smell of one plant as "housemaid's armpit".)    And through them all there runs a theme of looking deeply and well at everything, of learning to look and to see as an artist.  Whether it's the shape of a leaf or the vivid contrast of colours or the spill of foliage against crumbling stone, she encourages one to see what's really there, not what habit tells us is there.  Is the bark of a tree really brown?  Or is it black and tan and crumbling mould and mottled moss?

"To learn how to perceive the difference and how to do right is to apprehend gardening as a fine art.  In practice is is to place every plant or group of plants with such thoughtful care and definite intention that they shall form a part of the harmonious whole, and that successive portions, or in some cases even single details, shall show a series of pictures.  It is so to regulate the trees and undergrowth of the wood that their lines and masses come into beautiful form and harmonious proportion; it is to be always watching, noting and doing, and putting oneself meanwhile into closest acquaintance and sympathy with growing things." 

And that seeing, for Miss Jekyll, was the beginning of the magic, the art and the process that is a garden...

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

M.M. Bennetts is a specialist in early nineteenth-century British history and the Napoleonic wars (quite keen on gardens too)  as well as the author of two historical novels set in the period - May 1812 and Of Honest Fame. Find out more at www.mmbennetts.com.

"The Rack Seldom Stood Idle..."

By Nancy Bilyeau

In 1588, more than halfway into the reign of Elizabeth I, a man named John Gerard, English by birth, returned to his homeland, setting foot on the coast at Norfolk. He was arrested six years later, in a London house he had rented. The government officials did not believe Gerard’s story that he was a gentleman fond of gambling and hunting. And they were right to do so. Gerard was actually a Jesuit priest, educated in Douai and Rome, and leading a covert and highly dangerous life in Protestant England.

Father Gerard was conveyed to the Tower, accused of trying “to lure people from the obedience of the Queen to the obedience of the Pope.” His interrogators demanded to know who had assisted him in England. He refused to name names.

In a book Father Gerard wrote years later, he reports being one day “taken for a second examination to the house of a magistrate called Young. Along with him was another… an old man, grown grey.” Young began the questioning—what Catholics did Father Gerard know? “I answered that I neither could not nor would make disclosures that would get any one into trouble, for reasons already stated,” says the Jesuit.

Young turned to his silent colleague and said, “I told you how you would find him.” The older men looked at Father Gerard “frowningly” and finally spoke. “Do you know me?” he asked “I am Topcliffe, of whom I doubt not you have often heard.”

Sir Richard Topcliffe then led the interrogation, and Father Gerard was tortured by use of manacles for more than six hours. A friar said, ‘Twice he has been hung up by the hands with great cruelty…the examiners say he is exceedingly obstinate.”

Topcliffe, a lawyer and Member of Parliament, began serving the queen in the 1570s and seems to have reported to Sir Francis Walsingham. He hated Catholics with great intensity and boasted of having a chamber in his home containing devices “superior” to the ones in the Tower. The government allowed him to make official use of this home chamber. When a prisoner must be "put to the pain," it was time to send for Topcliffe. His favorite methods: the rack and the manacles.

Of all the mysteries of Elizabeth I, few are as baffling as the humane queen’s favor toward the inhuman Sir Richard Topcliffe, chief torturer of the realm. An undoubted sadist, he was the dark blot on her golden age.

When researching an earlier blog post on “Little Ease” in the Tower of London, I came across the 1933 book The History of Torture in England, by L.A. Parry.  The 16^th century was when torture reached its height in England. “Under Henry VIII it was frequently employed; it was only used in a small number of cases in the reigns of Edward VI and Mary. It was while Elizabeth sat on the throne that it was made use of more than in any other period of history.” Parry quotes the historian Hallam: “The rack seldom stood idle in the latter part of Elizabeth’s reign.”

More recent historical works confirm this grim record. Prisoners were tortured and some were later executed. Anne Somerset in Elizabeth I said, “one-hundred and eighty-three Catholics were executed during Elizabeth’s reign; one-hundred and twenty-three of them were priests.” Elizabeth Jenkins, author of Elizabeth the Great, shudders over the “unspeakable Richard Topcliffe” and says, “The whole process of hunting down priests and examining them under torture was quite outside the domain of the law courts.”

How could the erudite Elizabeth who said she had “no desire to make windows into men’s souls” officiate over these horrors? Two people seem to have triggered this change in the queen. One was Pope Pius V who excommunicated the queen in 1570, branding her as a “servant of crime.” This act encouraged her subjects to rise up. 

The other was the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots, a focus of possible rebellion the entire time she was held in the kingdom after she was driven out of her own land. Elizabeth's secretary, Walsingham, became her spymaster. The indefatigable Puritan was convinced that the Jesuits and other priests who secretly practiced in England were part of an international conspiracy to destabilize the realm and eventually depose the queen. Many of the interrogated priests, such as Father Gerard, insisted they were loyal to the queen, that they led secret lives because Mass was illegal. But some unquestionably were drawn into dangerous conspiracy against Elizabeth, such as the Babington Plot, which sought to replace Elizabeth with Mary.

In fact, the embattled queen, no doubt frightened as well as enraged, ordered that the guilty Babington conspirators be executed in ways so horrible it would never be forgotten. And so the first ones were. But the crowd of spectators, presumably hardened to such sights, were sickened by the hellish castratings and disembowelings. When the queen heard of this, she ordered the next round of traitors be hanged until they were dead.

Elizabeth realized she had gone too far. It’s regrettable that she did not realize that more often.

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Nancy Bilyeau is the author of the historical thriller set in Tudor England, The Crown. The sequel, The Chalice, will be published in the United Kingdom on Feb. 28th and in North America on March 5th. For more information, go to www.nancybilyeau.com

The Art of Courtly Love

By Sandra Byrd

The art of courtly love and chivalric romance so popular during the early medieval period saw a revival during the Tudor era. Because the majority of noble marriages were arranged, with the focus being on financial or political gain, courtly love was a gentle, parrying game of flirtation wherein people might express true, heart-felt affections.

According to historian Eric Ives, “The courtier, the ‘perfect knight’, was supposed to sublimate his relations with the ladies of the court by choosing a ‘mistress’ and serving her faithfully and exclusively. He formed part of her circle, wooed her with poems, songs and gifts, and he might wear her favor and joust in her honor … in return, the suitor must look for one thing only, ‘kindness’ – understanding and platonic friendship.” Many of the plays and entertainments in Henry the Eighth’s court reflected these values and Henry himself, early in his reign, was very chivalrous and courtly indeed.

The longest game of courtly love, played out before all of Europe, was undoubtedly between Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII. The relationship started out as courtly flirtation but as sometimes happened, it then progressed to a more serious, deeper connection with a significant goal in outcome and purpose. Andreas Capellanus, in his definitive twelfth century book, The Art of Courtly Love, set out to inform “lovers” which gifts could be offered, (among them a girdle, a purse, a ring, or gloves) and to clarify the signs and signals that indicated such a love game was underway – or on the wane.

Although Anne and Henry's courtly relationship did not follow each of the thirty-one rules Capellanus lists from the “King of Love,” it did dovetail with some of them – a few of which have been examined below.

Rule II. He who is not jealous cannot love. This rule immediately brings to mind the incident between Henry and Thomas Wyatt during a game of bowls. Thomas Wyatt used one of Anne’s ribbons and bauble to mark distance, and he meant to use it to provoke or test Henry’s jealousy. Henry, predictably, flew into a possessive bluster. Anne recovered nicely from Wyatt’s foolishness, but there was no further doubting that she was Caesar’s and not to be touched.

Rule IV. It is well known that love is always increasing or decreasing. One of the most extraordinary things about Henry’s affection for Anne is that she was able to not only capture it but build upon it over a remarkable period of time – seven years from 1525 when it was clear he had fallen for her, to 1533 when their public marriage took place – allegedly, without physical consummation. He did not become bored or disinterested in her companionship. This was no mean feat when one considers Henry’s short attention span. He wrote tender love letters to Anne, some of which still exist, a powerful demonstration of his growing love as Henry loathed writing.

Rule XI. It is not proper to love any woman whom one would be ashamed to seek to marry. Much has been made of the fact that Anne “held out” sexually from Henry for personal reasons, and that Henry wanted his heirs by her to be legitimate, two among other valid reasons why they did not simply have an affair. But there is strong evidence to suggest that Henry found Anne worthy of marriage – he crowned her –and took great pride in displaying her before all the court. In Anne it is clear that for some time Henry believed he’d found a spirited soul mate who was as vibrant as he was and he desired for her to be his wife.

Rule XIV. The easy attainment of love makes it of little value; difficulty of attainment makes it prized. We’re often reminded that Henry left his wife and broke away from the Roman Catholic Church during his pursuit to marry Anne, courting war and ill will in the process. But Anne, too, made sacrifices. Her child-bearing years were quickly slipping by; there was a rush to judgment as she was reviled by much of the populace as a usurper; she had no official role nor position; and, finally, there was no guarantee that she would even have her marriage. Both of them risked much.

Only one of them, in the end, lost everything.

Rule XXVIII. A slight presumption causes a lover to suspect his beloved. In the end, it took very little to convince Henry that Anne had betrayed him, a ridiculous acceptance of circumstances that demanded Anne be in places she clearly was not and act in ways that would never have gone unnoticed and that were in stark contrast to her character. . One must ask, why? Cappellanus answers that question for us, too.

“…when love has definitely begun to decline, it quickly comes to an end unless something comes to save it.”

At the point when the King’s affections began their precipitous drop, long after their game of courtly love was over and well into their marriage, the only thing that could have saved Anne was the son she miscarried. Chivalric values included integrity, protecting the vulnerable, and acting with self-sacrificing honor. Sadly, Henry did not turn out to be the “perfect knight” Ives speaks of.

Learn more about Sandra’s books here:  Sandra Byrd's Tudor-Set Books  including her books,  To Die For: A Novel of Anne Boleyn and The Secret Keeper: A Novel of Kateryn Parr.  

The Blue Stocking Circle

By Lauren Gilbert

Muses in the Temple of Apollo by Richard Samuel, 1778
Contains portraits of the Bluestockings-National Portrait Gallery

After the death of Queen Elizabeth I (a very scholarly woman), education for women declined.   Gentlewomen in the early 18th century England were not encouraged to be educated.  For many, reading, writing and a little arithmetic were the most they could hope for (useful skills for acquiring religion and running a household).  Maybe a little French, drawing or painting, and some music, for social accomplishments.  For most women of lower classes, even that much education was not possible. Ideally, women should be content with whatever fathers and husbands chose from them to know.  As Alexander Pope wrote in 1720:

In beauty and wit

No mortal has yet

To question your empire has dared;

But men of discerning

Have thought that in learning

To yield to a lady was hard.  

However, not every woman was satisfied to be uneducated, confined solely to domestic interests or placated with empty compliments.  Even without the kind of formal education provided to young men, there were women who learned at home, acquired knowledge, and wanted to be able to use and enjoy it. 

     I should begin by saying that this article is an introduction, a broad and general overview, to a group of well-to-do, mostly married, society women in the mid 18^th century, who wanted to do more than dance and play cards for recreation.  They were women of some education who met informally to discuss literature, the arts, education, and similar topics.  They did not allowed politics and scandal as topics for discussion.  These meetings, or “conversations”, were similar to the French salons, and were held in the women’s homes. 

     The two most noted hostesses were Elizabeth Vesey and Elizabeth Montague.    Other women who participated included Fanny Burney (Madame d’Arblay), Hannah Moore, Mary Delany (see earlier post  in this blog), Catherine Talbot,  Elizabeth Carter and others .   Each of these women is worthy of a blog post of her own.  Several of these women were authors or artists themselves.  (Elizabeth Montagu contributed to Lord Lyttleton’s  “Dialogues of the Dead,” Hannah Moore and Fanny Burney were both novelists. Mary Delany produced hundreds of letters and her own works of art.)  Some provided encouragement to those who did write, study, and create.  Individually, members of the group provided financial assistance to artists, writers and others who were in need.  

     Interestingly, the participants at these meetings were frequently fairly evenly divided between men and women right from the beginning.  (This was not about men v.s. women; these were women who wanted to be involved on an even level with men.)  Elizabeth Vesey was the first important hostess of these gatherings, and her husband participated in her events.  He himself was interested in literature, and was considered an excellent host.   The hostesses invited educated men to participate and mixed society figures with writers and artists.  The male guests included David Garrick, Horace Walpole, James Boswell, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Lord Lyttleton, and Samuel Richardson.  Science, music, art, literature and education itself were all represented at these meetings and were widely discussed.    Sometimes, one particular speaker would dominate the event; other “conversations” might consist of small groups conversing among themselves.

      Where did the term “Blue Stocking” come from?  There are several theories, but the most accepted indicates that the term was coined as an affectionate nickname for Benjamin Stillingfleet, botanist and poet, who had given up society. He originally declined his invitation to Mrs. Vesey’s “conversation” because he did not have formal evening wear, which included black stockings.  She told him not to mind, just to come in his blue stockings (his usual every day wear) and he did; he was very popular and was called “blew stockings” afterwards.  According to Boswell, “Such was the excellence of his conversation, that it came to be said, we can do nothing without the blue stockings, and thus, by degrees, the title was established.” This term was gradually applied to the women members of the group as a good natured (yet somewhat malicious) nickname.  Hannah Moore wrote a poem “Bas Bleu” (French for Blue Stocking) celebrating the group.  The term seems to have begun as an informal, affectionate nickname within the group that later was applied in derision by outsiders.  Ultimately, to be called “blue” or “bluestocking” became a negative term for an earnest or priggish woman who likes to show off her knowledge.

     Today, the “Blue Stocking Circle” is considered an early feminist movement.   Personally, I find it difficult to apply the modern term “feminist” to these women.   They were women of their time.  Their positions and resources allowed them certain freedoms that other women did not have; although they clearly supported intelligent women and education, there is nothing to show they sought a radical change in social structure.  Politics were not a subject for their “conversations” and there is no indication that they were actively discussing significant changes on a societal or political level in relation to the position of women in general.  In fact, they were not always tolerant of those who did flout certain society standards.  For example, Hester Thrale was friends with Elizabeth Montagu and Fanny Burney.  However, Mrs. Montagu and Miss Burney couldn’t accept Hester’s second marriage to an Italian music teacher named Gabriel Piozzi, and the friendships ended.  Clearly, even though they were willing to mix elements at their “conversations,” there were still conventions to be upheld.  They were generous with their support, but there is no indication they tried to change the world in which they lived.  However, these women clearly showed that females could hold their own with men in intelligent conversation, that women were capable of enjoying literature and learning about science and the arts as well as how to embroider and draw.   Their group was the most well known, but by no means the only group involving women in discussion; debating societies were very popular.  In a very real sense, their “conversations” and similar groups contributed to  people thinking about the issues that ultimately became feminism.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Heape, R. Grundy.  GEORGIAN YORK.  (1937: Methuen & Co. Ltd.,  London)

Hilton, Boyd.  A MAD, BAD, & DANGEROUS PEOPLE? England 1783-1846.  The New Oxford History of England, J. M. Roberts, Gen. Ed.  (2006: Clarendon Press, Oxford)

Hodge, Jane Aiken.  PASSION & PRINCIPLE The Loves and Lives of Regency Women.  (1996: John Murray (Publishers) Ltd., London)

Bartleby.com. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907-21), Volume XI. The Period of the French Revolution.  http://www.bartleby.com/221/1502.html      http://www.bartleby.com/221/1502.html     http://www.bartleby.com/221/1503.html     http://www.bartleby.com/221/1500.html

Encyclopedia.com.  Drabble, Margaret and Stringer, Jenny.  The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature, 2003. http://www.encyclopedia.com/utility/printdocument.aspx?id=1054:BlueStockingCircle.

Ludwig, Katelyn.  REINVENTING THE FEMININE Bluestocking Writers in the 18th Century.  http://www.katelynludwig.com/masters/index.html

Wikisource.com. 1911 Encyclopaedia  Britannica/Montagu,Elizabeth Robinson.  http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Montagu,_Elizabeth_Robinson

Website: CONTRIBUTIONS OF 20^TH CENTURY WOMEN TO PHYSICS.  Byers, Nina.  Overview of Women’s Education in England and the United States1600-1900.  Posted 12/4/1999. http://cwp.library.ucla.edu/articles/WL.html

Lauren Gilbert is the author of HEYERWOOD: A Novel.

The Delicate Investigation

by Regina Jeffers

The Fox-Greenville government presented the Prince the opportunity to take a bit of revenge on several levels, especially when it came to his estranged wife, Princess Caroline. By 1799, the Princess spent most of her time living at Montague House in Blackheath. Caroline also spent most of her time "flirting" with several of George III's ministers, specifically Henry Dundas (Treasurer of the Navy), Charles Long (an Undersecretary to the Treasury), William Windham (Secretary of War), George Canning (a member of the Board of Control and future Prime Minister) and William Pitt. These senior Tories cultivated Caroline to serve as her daughter's Regent if George IV met with an untimely death.

Caroline's exploits were common knowledge among those who followed palace gossip. Thomas Lawrence, the portrait painter, reportedly had a brief affair with the Princess in 1800. Rear-Admiral Sir Sidney Smith, who had thwarted Napoleon's plans for Syria, occupied much of the Princess's time during 1801. Smith lived with Sir John Douglas (a knighted Royal Marine officer) in Blackheath during 1801-02. As neighbors of the Princess, the Douglases and Smith were often visitors at Montague House.

In the Fall of 1802, a three-month-old boy's arrival at Montague House added coal to the fire. Reportedly, Caroline had asked her staff to assist in locating a child for her to raise. A woman named Sophia Austin came to the Princess's home to ask for assistance in finding employment for her husband, Samuel, who had been dismissed from the Deptford Dockyard. Mrs. Austin was persuaded by the Princess's staff to place her newborn son in the Princess's care in exchange for Caroline's assistance.

At Christmastide 1802, Caroline took up an alliance with Captain Thomas Manby. The Douglases were away at Plymouth at the time, and by their return, Manby had replaced Sir Sidney in the Princess's regard. Yet, by the spring of 1803, Manby's frigate, H.M.S. Africaine, had been refitted, and he set sail. Reportedly, Caroline had paid for his cabin's remodeling and had given the captain £300. When his frigate was stationed at Dover Roads, Caroline took a house in Ramsgate and visited the ship often. 


Having second thoughts about the Douglases' knowledge of her affairs, Caroline began a "smear campaign" against her former friends and Sir Sidney. Apparently the Princess was trying to discredit the threesome before they had the opportunity to do the same to her. When George III gave Caroline the Rangership of Greenwich Park, in an effort to reduce her debts, the Princess leased a house in Greenwich to the newly founded Royal Naval School. She followed that with the earmarking of various other houses in the Park for her Household and officials of the school. Among the tenants given notice to quit their house were Sir John and Lady Douglas. 


The Douglases retaliated by given George IV evidence of his wife's affairs. Lady Douglas provided the Prince Regent with a charge that Willy Austin, the child Caroline had taken in, was Princess Caroline's child, and that the Princess planned to pass the boy off as the Prince's because Caroline had slept two nights at Carlton House during the dates of the boy's conception. If Lady Douglas's claims proved true, in addition to committing adultery (a crime punishable by death), the Princess planned to supersede the succession of her own daughter, Princess Charlotte. 

The Prince turned the information over to Samuel Romilly, the Whig lawyer. The Douglases made a written statement, which was shown to several more of the "political brotherhood." Following the death of Pitt and the formation of the Ministry of All the Talents in early 1806, Prinny "took no steps whatever to make it [Caroline's possible crimes] the subject of public investigation; but manifested on the contrary the greatest desire to avoid it if possible." However, as Romilly had been appointed Solicitor-General, the prosecution of the Princess appeared imminent. If the Prince could prove the charges, he could pursue the dissolution of his marriage to a woman he despised. 


In May 1806, the Dukes of York, Kent, and Sussex encouraged their brother to consent to laying the charges against the Princess before the Council. Despite the fact that some of the evidence against the Princess had been contradicted by her two physicians, George IV agreed to the request. The so-called "Delicate Investigation" began on June 1. Lady Douglas's testimony became the basis of the charges, but others gave statements. Among those who were questioned were William Cole and Robert Bidigood, the Princess's former pages and most of her Household staff. 


Despite Prinny's hopes that the Commission would find against the Princess, on July 14, the Commission released its report. It concluded that the child was not of Caroline's issue. However, the Commission declared the Princess guilty of adultery until proved innocent. Having received a copy of the Secret Commission's report, the King was in a difficult position. While there was no actual proof of adultery, the circumstantial evidence was compelling. Therefore, George III severed "all future social intercourse" with Caroline except "outward marks of civility." 

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Of Cameleopards and Lions: The Medieval Bestiary

By Rosanne E. Lortz

Throughout history, from Aesop’s Fables to the Animal Planet network, the human imagination has been captured by the scaly, furry, four-footed, scurrying, slithering, swimming, and winged creatures of the animal world. Not only have the characteristics of animals provided endless fascination, but also the lessons that can be drawn from those characteristics.

The Physiologos, a Greek book written in the second or third century A.D., was the first book to take brief descriptions of animals and add to them Christian allegories. This book was translated into most of the European languages and is said to have been the second most popular book in Europe (after the Bible).

Page of the Etymologies

In the seventh century, Isidore of Seville wrote an extensive encyclopedia of animals (Book 12 of his Etymologies), attempting to describe every animal in the world. Eventually, someone had the bright idea of combining the allegorical interpretation of the Physiologos with the detailed descriptions from Etymologies. The medieval bestiary was born—part encyclopedia, part self-improvement, part doctrinal treatise, and especially popular in the country of England.



Richard Barber, in his translation of a thirteenth century bestiary, gives this succinct description of the genre:

Bestiaries are a particularly characteristic product of medieval England, and give a unique insight into the medieval mind. Richly illuminated and lavishly produced, they were luxury objects for noble families. Their three-fold purpose was to provide a natural history of birds, beasts, and fishes, to draw moral examples from animal behaviour (the industrious bee, the stubborn ass), and to reveal a mystical meaning—the phoenix, for instance, as a symbol of Christ’s resurrection. 

The medievals believed that animals had a wonderful capacity to reveal truths about this world and the world beyond it. The Old Testament book of Proverbs had its own examples of morals learned from animals (e.g. Proverbs 6:6--Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise), and the book of Job supported the idea that mystical meanings could be gleaned from a study of the natural world:

But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee;
And the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee:
Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee:
And the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee.
(Job 12:7-8)

T. H. White, the twentieth century English author most famous for his King Arthur series The Once and Future King, was deeply interested in bestiaries and published his own translation of a twelfth-century bestiary. In the appendix he discussed the worldview that made this kind of literature possible:

In the ages of faith, people believed that the Universe was governed by a controlling mind and was capable of a rational explanation. They believed that everything meant something…. Every possible article in the world, and its name also, concealed a hidden message for the eye of faith. 

For modern readers, it often seems that these “hidden messages” or mystical meanings take precedence over reality (a lion’s offspring are born dead and come to life after three days—you're joking, right?). Many of the fantastic animals described in the bestiary also stretch the imagination to the point that one could consider the medievals insanely gullible or outright liars.

Leopard from the 13th c. Rochester Bestiary

T.H. White, however, was not deterred by the seemingly false or the sublimely fantastic. "It can hardly be repeated too often that the bestiary is a serious scientific work." Many of the bizarre claims were honest mistakes made by naturalists from earlier centuries and repeated by others who drew on their work. Many of the animals that we would immediately classify as “mythical” return to the realm of reality upon closer examination. White noted that:

A Cameleopard…is a genuine animal, and by no means a bad attempt to describe an unseen creature which was as big as a camel while being spotted like a leopard, i.e. a giraffe...the real pleasure comes with identifying the existing creature, not with laughing at a supposedly imaginary one. 

In the passage quoted above, White expressed something very important, both for the study of bestiaries and for the study of the past in general. Instead of immediately dismissing the medievals as unintelligent or laughable, he extended them the courtesy of assuming them sensible and found a pleasure in puzzling out what they meant. By reading the bestiary on its own terms, White—an agnostic himself—was finally able to conclude that:  

The Bestiary is a compassionate book. It has its bugaboos, of course, but these are only there to thrill us. It loves dogs, which never was usual in the East from which it originated; it is polite to bees, and even praises them for being communists…the horse moves it, as Sidney’s heart was moved, ‘more than with a trumpet’; above all, it has a reverence for the wonders of life, and praises the Creator of them: in whom, in those days, it was still possible absolutely to believe.

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Rosanne E. Lortz is the author of I Serve: A Novel of the Black Prince, a historical adventure/romance set during the Hundred Years' War, and Road from the West: Book I of the Chronicles of Tancred, the beginning of a trilogy which takes place during the First Crusade.

You can learn more about Rosanne's books at her Official Author Website where she also blogs about writing, mothering, and things historical.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barber, Richard. Bestiary. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1999.

The Medieval Bestiary: Animals in the Middle Ages. http://bestiary.ca/

White, T.H. The Book of Beasts. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 1984.

The Shooting of Partridge

by Farida Mestek 

Last month I blogged about interesting facts and curious habits of partridges and today I'm going to tell you some interesting facts (at least for me) about shooting them.

 According to Robert Blakely, the author of “Shooting” where I take my information and occasional inspiration from (I still dream about writing a Regency novel about a shooting party), tells us that the shooting of partridges is a popular sport. In fact, it is more universally entered into than any other of the sporting amusements of Britain. It is more homely and domestic than moor shooting; and can be enjoyed by the comparatively weak and aged. 

We are told by distinguished sportsmen, that the footing of partridges, though a very requisite qualification in pointers, is one of the last things that should be expected from them; for they are not to be relied on until they get fairly to comprehend from the sportsman that they are not to catch the bird; the only thing required of them is to point out where it is. It is well known that partridges will generally lie closer and better to dogs that wind them, than to those that track them; the reason given for this is, that when they are winded, the dogs do not go straightforward towards them, but follow the scent left by their devious course. When birds see dogs trace their footsteps down wind they will fly off, for they cannot take the scent till they are near them. Another matters is of some importance in commencing partridge shooting in September, and that is, that dogs brought immediately from the moors, and put upon the hunting of the partridge, are in many cases unfit for the purpose for some days, till they are again broken in to their new task. 

Some sportsmen recommend being very early in the field for the partridge, while others maintain this is a comparatively useless custom. However, if we could take anything like an accurate census of sportsmen's success in partridge shooting during the months of September and October, we would find the most productive hours to range from eleven till three in the afternoon. But after the month of October, and from this to the end of the partridge season, we should not insist on being earlier in the field than about mid-day. The weather now becomes sour and ungenial in the fore part of the day.

It is an established maxim in partridge shooting, that broken coveys yield the best sport. It has been whimsically said, that while the young birds have the old ones with them they are “up to every move on the board”. Deprived of their natural leaders and protectors, they seem lost, and have no settled idea of safety. This is the fortunate time for sportsmen to make play upon them and press their dogs to ferret them out, and trace them from one spot to another. 

As the season advances, the size of the shot to be used for partridge shooting should be enlarged. For the first fortnight No. 5 and No. 6 are recommended; after this No. 4 and No. 5. In October, No. 3 will be found the most eligible.

Food for Thought - Medieval Feasts

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

By the last fading years of the English Medieval period, just before the Tudor onslaught– the huge gap between rich and poor which had existed since 1066, had started to wane with the emergence of a new Middle Class, the expansion of trade, the regrowth of the population and the development of new businesses. But the initial narrowing of the poverty gap, with the virtual end of the so-called Feudal system, really came about as a result of the Black Death (1348- 1353 and onwards) when labour became harder to purchase and the working man discovered his real value. Another of those somewhat uncomfortable situations where great disaster brings great benefit in its wake!

Where food was concerned, however, the gap was still distinctive and no one was going to get excited about being invited to dinner at the local crofter’s cottage. But a medieval feast – now that was a different matter.

For the majority, dinner was traditionally eaten at midday or some time earlier. Especially for those who rose at first light and took no breakfast, then dinner could be taken as early as 9 in the morning. Breakfast was not entirely unknown of course – breaking the fast of a long English evening and a long cold night was sensible, but it was unlikely to involve much more than bread and ale, or possibly porridge. Farm labourers took food with them as they tramped out to the fields, something cold wrapped in their shirts or hats. This was, for instance, the origin of the Cornish pasty. Many took a little ale and bread after early morning Mass, but many others took nothing at all.

There were two qualities of bread – cheat for the poor and manchet for those who could pay for better. Manchet was baked with white flour and was considered more refined. Bread rolls were the most common, (as loaves were more likely to be made of sugar at that time!) bought ready made from the bakers where a baker’s dozen really did mean 13. Cheat, on the other hand, was made with dark flour, either rye or a mixture of oats and barley, less refined in taste but more filling. Those with only rudimentary kitchens in their own homes often utilised communal ovens in cook houses or the village square.

Supper was likely eaten shortly before sun down but the hour would depend on the working habits of the family. For the poor this would likely comprise bread and cheese, a vegetable pottage or what had been left over from dinner. For the wealthy, supper could be anything from a light snack to a full scale feast. Eating well was a proof of status, and in any case, a rich man was likely to have a huge household to feed.

Thanks to the imagination of many and a few old films, there still appears to be a misunderstanding of medieval table habits. In fact, they were likely to be far more strictly tidy than our own modern more casual practises. The use of clean linen, including a very large starched napkin placed across the left shoulder, was essential. Since the fork had not yet been introduced into general English usage in the late 15th century, cutlery meant spoon and knife only. The knife was often each man’s own property brought to the table. The use of fingers was therefore necessary, but this did not mean bad manners. Hands were wiped on the napkin, washed before and after meals, and only used where the spoon and the knife were insufficient. Grace would be pronounced first by the head of the family (or the chaplain in a large household), the first course would be laid, and there was supposed to be consideration for others at the table where communal bowls and platters were concerned. Someone taking more than his share would be frowned upon. The position of the salt cellar could be an important part of accepted etiquette, and generally behaving with discreet decorum was important. A child was taught table manners. His elders would be judged by theirs.

Light ale was the most common drink, also for children. It was weak by our standards but many beers were stronger. Wine was most likely to be imported from Flanders, France, Italy or Spain, although some was produced in England. The famous Malmsy was a sweetish Greek wine. Burgundy was highly favoured and there were various qualities, with Beaune perhaps the best. There was Claret, Cabernet from Brittany, Vernaccia and Trebbiano (Italian), Sack (sherry from Jerez) and many, many more. If spiced and possibly gingered, and then maybe heated, the wine became Hippocras and was supposedly medicinal. Certainly very pleasant on a chilly evening by the fire. Very sweet wines from the Levant were favoured by some ladies. Verjuice, made from unfermented and often unripe English grapes, was used in cooking. Mead was often bought from the monasteries where honey from the locally kept bee hives was used, and sold, by the monks. So there was certainly no lack of good lubrication to help the digestion. Water was, after all, completely undrinkable. It was dangerously polluted in almost all areas of the country, and was used mainly for washing though also in cooking where it was hopefully sufficiently boiled for safety. Dysentery was, however, common.

Fruit and vegetables were not particularly favoured, especially by the rich. Fresh fruit was considered extremely bad for you, and too much of any fruit could prove fatal! Death from a surfeit of berries was sometimes a doctor’s diagnosis. Fruit was used in cooking, but more commonly for brewing. Cider and Perry were popular in country areas. Vegetables were given to farm animals, but also eaten by the poor. A vegetable pottage (slow cooked stew) or a cabbage soup was both filling and easily produced. But for the rich it was protein all the way. Meat, fish and dairy was favoured. Fish was not always popular but the Church insisted on no meat being eaten on Fridays, religious fasts and many saints’ days. Abstention from these strictures could be bought or pleaded, but the rules were fairly strict and, it seems, usually upheld. Although a great variety of fish and seafood was available, the boredom of a fishy diet could be alleviated by the addition of duck, beaver and other water or sea birds, usefully classified as fish by the helpful and hopeful clergy.

Meat was the staple diet of those who could afford it. Roasting was the favoured cooking method, slowly turned on a spit over a roaring open fire. Boiling in stews and soups was also common, as was frying, and smoked bacon was much utilised. Since there was no method of refrigeration available, meat and fish were preserved out of season by smoking and drying. Rich dishes of meat stuffed with onions, herbs and raisins were popular, and apples were more often used in stuffings than as fresh fruit. Those unable to afford such regular luxuries would still eat meat as often as was possible, but would frequently be reduced to eating simple stews of beans, barley, oatmeal, lentils and peas.

The use of spices in cooking was considered important – not to disguise the taste of rotten meat which is another of the many myths regarding medieval affairs which still persists – but to add flavour and to pronounce wealth and status. Spices were, on the whole, enormously expensive. Therefore the more spice added to your guests’ platters, the more they knew and respected your importance. So a fair dose of cinnamon, nutmeg, anise, caraway seeds, cloves and even the monstrously expensive saffron might be liberally spread across your dinner.

Dishes could be either simple or complicated. Roast boar crusted in mustard – pickled lampreys – buttered crabs on a bed of smoked eels – calves’ testicles filled with onion, minced lambs’ kidneys and nutmeg – capon studded with cloves and served on salad greens, clams and beans – a galantine of three dark meats in aspic – baked pike in burned cream – larks bound in leeks in a red wine sauce - boiled tripe and sweated onions – stewed rabbit in a pastry pie. Well it goes on and on – both the amazing and the horrifying.

For feasts in grand houses, three courses were normally served (there could be more) but each course was comprised of many separate dishes. Depending on how lavish the host wished to appear, twenty or more different platters might be set across the table for each course. And even more confusing to us, each of these courses could include both sweets and savouries. Custards, spit-roast apples, creamed almonds with marzipan berries, jellies, tarts and fruity dumplings in syrup could be served right amongst the roast meats, stews, meat pies and fish.

The third and last course, however, often contained only wafers and a huge sugar sculpture, known as a subtlety. This could be amazing and a chef could boost his reputation by producing something to make the guests gasp. For Christmas celebrations a whole nativity scene might be carved from sugar loaves. Swans, peacocks, angels, crowns, palaces and many other gorgeously elegant and fragile creations made of nothing but sugar, would be carried out to the table by the chef and his assistants, greeted by clapping and cheers. All in all, not a particularly healthy diet but not, perhaps, as pernicious as English eating habits became over the following centuries.

And of course in those days the great chandelier swinging from the huge medieval beams was true to its name and held only candles, their light dancing across the platters and gilding meat juices golden, highlighting the tips of pastry crust, flickering over the gleaming jellies and blurring those magnificent subtleties until the swan truly seemed to be swimming in its pool of reflections. The candlelight, and the surging light of flame from the hearth, would also shimmer across the satins, the damasks, taffetas and jewellery of the guests. Those were the days of dressing suitably for the occasion.

The poor rarely tasted sugar, which was dreadfully expensive. They did not lack sweetening however, as honey was plentiful. But a humble meal did not aspire to contain sweet meats or custards, and a modest sufficiency to control hunger was frequently all that could be expected. During these final years of the medieval period, particularly during the reigns of Edward IV and Richard III, the country prospered and the poor were rarely so poor. But only the extravagant rich aspired to a three course feast, or needed to announce their reputations with the massive expense of hosting one. Aldermen, city mayors, guild dignitaries, prosperous traders and weddings parties where one side needed to impress the other – all these spread their tables heavily until the table legs groaned. Some guests ate to do justice to such a feast (King Edward IV is reputed to have become an overweight glutton in his later years) but many of these sumptuous dishes were afterwards relegated to the kitchens, and were then shared out to the scullions, to local
alms houses and charities, and to the beggars at the doors.

The new foods discovered by the Spanish in the New World (1492/3) had not yet been introduced into the European diet, so there were no potatoes or tomatoes or the many other originally American delights we now take for granted. But what was lacking was made up for by the enormous energy and ingenuity of the cooks and their imaginative adherence to inventing new recipes and enriching old ones.

There are many fascinations to discover during this long gone age of 500 years past, but my new historical novel, SUMERFORD’S AUTUMN, (Available Amazon Kindle) is not much concerned with the parties of the nobility, though some of this is mentioned. Set in 1497 it is more concerned with the poor, the disadvantaged, and those suffering the displeasure of the new Tudor king. Sumerford Castle is grand but damp, and the earl and his family are neither as rich nor as comfortable as they seem. Rather than descriptions of feasts, there are descriptions of imprisonment, torture in the Tower, treachery, piracy and misfortune. But the research on this time period which I have been following with a passion for many years, covers all aspects of this remarkable era.

Marketing In Victorian London Circa 1876

Food Supply.—The Quarterly Review, on one occasion, illustrated, in a whimsical way, the vastness of the system.  The following is described as the supply of meat, poultry, bread, and beer, for one year:—72 miles of oxen, 10 abreast; 120 miles of sheep, do.; 7 miles of calves, do.; 9 miles of pigs, do.; 50 acres of poultry, close together; 20 miles of hares and rabbits, 100 abreast; a pyramid of loaves of bread, 600 feet square, and thrice the height of St. Paul’s; 1000 columns of hogsheads of beer, each 1 mile high.

Markets.—London contains nearly 40 markets for cattle, meat, corn, coal, hay, vegetables, fish, and other principal articles of consumption.  The meat-markets are of various kinds—one for live animals, others for carcases in bulk, and others for the retail of meat; some, also, are for pork, and others principally for fowls.  The New Cattle Market, Copenhagen Fields, near Pentonville, built, in 1854, to replace old Smithfield Market, covers nearly 30 acres, and, with outbuildings, slaughterhouses, &c., cost the City Corporation about £400,000.  It is the finest live stock market in the kingdom.  The present Smithfield Market, near the Holborn Viaduct, for dead meat and poultry, is a splendid building, 625 feet long, 240 feet wide, and 30 feet high.  Wide roads on its north, east, and west sides, accommodate its special traffic.  A carriage road runs right through it from north to south, with spacious and well ventilating avenues radiating from it.  There are in this market no less than 100,000 feet of available space.  It has cost upwards of £180,000 already.  There are underground communication with several railways, to bring in, right under the market, meat and poultry from the country, and meat from the slaughterhouses of the Copenhagen Fields Cattle Market.  Newgate Market, as a market, no longer exists.  Leadenhall Market is a depôt for meat and poultry.  At Whitechapel there is a meat market also.  The minor meat markets require no special note here.  Billingsgate, the principal fish market of London, near the Custom House, was greatly extended and improved in 1849.  It is well worth visiting any morning throughout the year, save Sunday, at five o’clock.  Ladies, however, will not care to encounter its noise, bustle, and unsavoury odours.  The fish arriving in steamers, smacks, and boats from the coast or more distant seas, are consigned to salesmen who, during the early market hours, deal extensively with the retail fishmongers from all parts of London.  The inferior fish are bought by the costermongers, or street-dealers.  When particular fish are in a prime state, or very scarce, there are wealthy persons who will pay enormously for the rarity; hence a struggle between the boats to reach the market early.  At times, so many boats come laden with the same kind of fish as to produce a glut; and instead of being sold at a high price, as is usually the case, the fish are then retailed for a mere trifle.  Fish is now brought largely to London by railway, from various ports on the east and south coasts.  The yearly sale of fish at Billingsgate has been estimated at so high a sum as £2,000,000.

Covent Garden Market (connected by Southampton Street with the Strand) is the great vegetable, fruit, and flower market.  This spot, which is exceedingly central to the metropolis, was once the garden to the abbey and convent of Westminster: hence the name Convent or Covent.  At the suppression of the religious houses in Henry VIII.’s reign, it devolved to the Crown.  Edward VI. gave it to the Duke of Somerset; on his attainder it was granted to the Earl of Bedford; and in the Russell family it has since remained.  From a design of Inigo Jones, it was intended to have surrounded it with a colonnade; but the north and a part of the east sides only were completed.  The fruit and vegetable markets were rebuilt in 1829–30.  The west side is occupied by the parish church of St. Paul’s, noticeable for its massive roof and portico.  Butler, author of Hudibras, lies in its graveyard, without a stone to mark the spot.  In 1721, however, a cenotaph was erected in his honour in Westminster Abbey.  The election of members to serve in Parliament for the city of Westminster was held in front of this church: the hustings for receiving the votes being temporary buildings.  The south side is occupied by a row of brick dwellings.  Within the square thus enclosed fruit and vegetables of the best quality are exposed for sale.  A large paved space surrounding the interior square is occupied by the market-gardeners, who, as early as four or five in the morning, have carted the produce of their grounds, and wait to dispose of it to dealers in fruit and vegetables residing in different parts of London; any remainder is sold to persons who have standings in the market, and they retail it to such individuals as choose to attend to purchase in smaller quantities.  Within this paved space rows of shops are conveniently arranged for the display of the choicest fruits of the season: the productions of the forcing-house, and the results of horticultural skill, appear in all their beauty.  There are also conservatories, in which every beauty of the flower-garden may be obtained, from the rare exotic to the simplest native flower.  The Floral Hall, close to Covent Garden Opera House, has an entrance from the north-east corner of the market, to which it is a sort of appendage as a Flower Market.  Balls, concerts, &c., are occasionally given here.  The Farringdon, Borough, Portman, Spitalfields, and other vegetable markets, are small imitations of that at Covent Garden.


Malt liquors.—The beer and ale consumed in the metropolis is, of course, vast in quantity, though there are no means of determining the amount.  If, by a letter of introduction, a stranger could obtain admission to Barclay & Perkins’s or Truman & Hanbury’s breweries, he would there see vessels and operations astonishing for their magnitude—bins that are filled with 2,000 quarters of malt every week; brewing-rooms nearly as large as Westminster Hall; fermenting vessels holding 1,500 barrels each; a beer-tank large enough to float an up-river steamer; vats containing 100,000 gallons each; and 60,000 casks, with 200 horses to convey them in drays to the taverns of the metropolis!

Shops and Bazaars.—The better-class London retail shops, for wealth, variety, and vast number, are among the greatest wonders of the place.  They speak for themselves.  The wholesale establishments with which New Cannon Street, Wood Street, and the south side of St. Paul’s Churchyard—noticeably the gigantic warehouses of Messrs. Cook & Co.—abound, if, by a letter of introduction, an order of admission can be obtained, would strike a stranger—in spite of less external display, save as regards size—as more wonderful still, so enormous is the amount of their business operations, and of capital incoming and outgoing.

There are about 7,400 streets, lanes, rows, &c., in the metropolis.  From Charing Cross, within a six miles radius, there are something over 2,600 miles of streets.  As regards trades generally, it is hard even to get anything like an approximate notion of their numbers.  As the Post Office London Directory says, new trades are being added to the list every year.  Thus, we are told, 57 new trades were so added in the year 1870.  But to specify a few, there are, say, about 130,000 shopkeepers, or owners of commercial establishments, who carry on more than 2,500 different trades.  Loss of much of London’s shipping trade, &c., has indeed driven hundreds of emigrants of late from our east-end waterside neighbourhoods.  But London has gone on growing all the same, and trade with it.  Among these trades are, without counting purely wholesale dealers, about 2,847 grocers and tea dealers, 2,087 butchers, 2,461 bakers, 1,508 dairymen, &c., 2,370 greengrocers and fruiterers, more than 595 retail fishmongers, 891 cheesemongers, (this computation does not include the small shops in poor neighbourhoods which sell almost everything,) 2,755 tailors, (not including about 500 old-clothesmen, wardrobe-dealers, &c.,) about 3,347 bootmakers, about 450 hatters, and so forth.  All these are master tradesmen or shopkeepers, irrespective of workmen, foremen, shopmen, clerks, porters, apprentices, and families.  We may add, that in the pages of that very large book the London Post Office Directory, no less than 52 columns and over are occupied by the long list of London publicans.

The principal Bazaars of London are the Soho, London Crystal Palace, (Oxford Street,) and Baker Street bazaars, to which should be added the Burlington Arcade, Piccadilly, and the Lowther Arcade, (famous for cheap toys,) in the Strand.  The once celebrated Pantheon, in Oxford Street, is now a wine merchant’s stores.  Many small bazaars exist.

The Bazaar system of oriental countries, in which all the dealers in one kind of commodity are met with in one place, is not observable in London; yet a stranger may usefully bear in mind that, probably for the convenience both of buyers and sellers, an approach to the system is made.  For instance, coachmakers congregate in considerable number in Long Acre and Great Queen Street; watchmakers and jewellers, in Clerkenwell; tanners and leather-dressers, in Bermondsey; bird and bird-cage sellers, in Seven Dials; statuaries, in the Euston Road; sugar-refiners, in and near Whitechapel; furniture-dealers, in Tottenham Court Road; hat-makers, in Bermondsey and Southwark; dentists, about St. Martin’s Lane; &c.  There is one bazaar, if so we may term it, of a very remarkable character—namely, Paternoster Row.  This street is a continuation of Cheapside, but is not used much as a thoroughfare, though it communicates by transverse alleys or courts with St. Paul’s Churchyard, and, at its western extremity, by means of Ave-Maria Lane, leads into Ludgate Hill.  Paternoster Row, or ‘the Row,’ as it is familiarly termed, is a dull street, only wide enough at certain points to permit two vehicles to pass each other, with a narrow pavement on each side.  The houses are tall and sombre in their aspect, and the shops below have a dead look, in comparison with those in the more animated streets.  But the deadness is all on the outside.  For a considerable period this street has been the head-quarters of booksellers and publishers, who, till the present day, continue in such numbers as to leave little room for other tradesmen—transacting business in the book-trade to a prodigious amount.  At the western extremity of Paternoster Row a passage leads from Amen Corner to Stationers’ Hall Court, in which is situated Stationers’ Hall, and also several publishing-houses.

Mudie’s Library.—While on the subject of books, we may remind the visitor that the most remarkable lending library in the world is situated in London.  Mudie’s, at the corner of New Oxford Street and Museum Street, affords a striking example of what the energy of one man can accomplish.  At this vast establishment the volumes are reckoned by hundreds of thousands; and the circulation of them, on easy terms, extends to every part of the kingdom.  The chief portion of the building is a lofty central gallery, of considerable beauty.
 

 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.

FenMaric, one of the main characters in my historic fantasy novel, Shadows In A Timeless Myth, was a member of the ninth legion who fought and died attempting to stop Boudicea in ancient Roman London.  He still exists to appear in Shadows because he was battle cursed by a Druid Priest to the same fate that the Druid Priests believed themselves fated for, soul transmigration...but with a vengefully, punishing twist!