Of Midwives and Childbirth

by Sam Thomas

In a post from last month I made the case that – contrary to popular perception and two different groups of historians – midwives were not decrepit crones from the edges of society. But once we’ve established that, we still need to learn more about the work that midwives did in the delivery room. Given the limited medical tools at their disposal, what could they do?

It is first important to note that in the pre-modern world midwifery was midwifery was not a science in the modern sense of the world. Rather, practitioners described their work as an “art” and, significantly, a “mystery.” The 1689 testimonial for the wife of James Phillips noted that she was “a Civill & discreet Matron & one well skilled & knowing in the Art & Mistery of Midwifery.” A few years later, Elizabeth Arrandell was described as “well skild in the Mystery of Midwifery…”

In keeping with its status as an art, there was much room for variation in the delivery room, but a midwife would check the cervix to see how far along the labor was, and prepare the mother for delivery by lubricating the birth canal, usually with oil or animal fat. She might give the mother an enema, rub liniment on her belly, and give the mother ‘caudle,’ a hot drink somewhere between gruel and spiced wine.

In the day of modern anesthetics, such work might seem (to some) to be of questionable value, but in the early modern period a good midwife made labor less painful, moved it along more quickly, and could be the difference between life and death. In the midst of her labor, Susanna Watkin cried out, “Godsake either fetch Ellin Jackson (being a midwife) or else knock me on the head.” Another woman – complaining when her desired midwife was late – claimed that she “might have been delivered two houres sooner if she had had...helpe when they desired it.”

Once the child was born, the midwife had the honor of cutting the umbilical cord, and it was she who washed and swaddled the child before returning it to the mother. She then made the decision whether to deliver the placenta manually or to let nature take its course.

While it would be a mistake not to acknowledge the importance of this work, as one historian noted, “majority of births…were uneventful whether attended by a physician, a midwife or a stork.” So what made one midwife better than another? I would argue that a midwife’s skill lay less on the medical side of the equation, and more on the social side. A good midwife could effectively manage the mother and the delivery room.

Naturally enough, a midwife’s social work focused on the mother. She ruled the delivery room, deciding assigning tasks to the other women present, and managing any conflicts between the mother and her birth attendants, or among the gossips themselves. The midwife also encouraged the mother in the last stages of labor, as in 1739 when a midwife assured her patient that “in less than Two Minutes the Child would be in the World.” 

The midwife also would have reassured anxious fathers during labor and consoled them in the event that the birth ended in the death of mother or child. In performing these tasks, from calming a panicky mother to controlling quarrelling gossips, a midwife would have had to project a great deal of authority – this was not a profession for a shrinking violet!

A good midwife thus had to have the ability to take control of difficult and dangerous situations, and convince her friends and neighbors to do as they were told. She was as authoritative a woman as you’d find. But a midwife’s role in the neighborhood went well beyond labor and delivery, and took her into the world of law enforcement as she investigated and helped to prosecute a variety of crimes.

But more on that next month...

Further reading:

David Cressy, Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England (Oxford, 1997). (An excellent book full of great stories!)

Laura Gowing, Common Bodies: Women, Touch and Power in Seventeenth-Century England (New Haven, 2003).

Mary Lindemann, Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1999).

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Sam Thomas is the author of  The Midwife's Tale: A Mystery from Minotaur/St.Martin's. Want to pre-order a copy? Click here. For more on midwifery and childbirth visit his website. You can also like him on Facebook  and follow him on Twitter.

Let's Go A' Barbering

By Katherine Pym

First, a little technical history:

Back in the day, monks were barber-surgeons.  They took care of all men's needs, from spiritual to physical. They groomed men and performed surgery on them. It was a monopoly.

But in 1163 at the Council of Tours, Pope Alexander III declared clergy getting their hands bloody was contrary to healing souls, and they were therefore banned from the practice. Enter the lay person where the profession of Barbery combined the services of grooming and doctoring. 

Barbers let passersby know they'd leech or perform surgery by putting a bowl of blood in their windows, but in 1307 an Ordinance forbade that little advertisement. Accumulated blood must be privately taken to the River Thames and dumped into its waters. If not, barbers were fined 2 shillings by the sheriff. Not to be outdone, barbers continued to advertise with red rags in the window.

The next year in 1308, the barber guild was formed. The first master of Barber's Company was Richard le Barber. In 1462, the guild received a royal charter by King Edward IV.

In 1540, the guild's title was changed to Barber-Surgeon, and disputes erupted. Finally, King Henry VIII enacted: "No person using any shaving or barbery in London shall occupy any surgery, letting of blood, or other matter, except of drawing teeth."

This law was not followed or enforced. Barbers often performed surgical procedures. They would barber in one part of their shop, and on the other do surgery, and surgeons--to make extra coin--practiced barbery.

The barber had long hours. King Henry VI issued an edict : "No barber open his shop to shave any man after 10 o'clock at night from Easter to Michaelmas, or 9 o'clock from Michaelmas to Easter, except it be any stranger or any worthy man of the town that hath need : whoever doeth to the contrary to pay one thousand tiles to the Guildhall."

Well, to cut that edict to a nubbin, it meant anyone with a coin could be barbered whenever he wanted, which included Sundays and holy days. Barbers traipsed around town all days, from sun up to sundown and beyond. Pepys was often barbered on Sunday mornings before he went to church, or late at night before he went to bed. 

From Visible World published in 1658, and considered the first illustrated schoolbook, the barber in his shop would "cutteth off the hair and the beard with a pair of sizzars or shaveth with a razor which he taketh out of his case. And he washeth one over a bason with suds running out of a laver and also with sope and wipeth him." 

The barber's shop was a world onto itself.  Gallants met there to be barbered or sewn together after suffering sword wounds.  Carbuncles would be lanced and drained, and medicines dispersed. Those waiting played musical instruments and gossiped.  The barbershop was where men went to learn current events or the latest scandals.

Once in the chair, their beards were starched and their hair trimmed. In "Quip for an Upstart Courtier published in 1592. It related that the courtier sat down in the throne of a chair, and the barber, after saluting him : 'Sir, will you have your worship's hair cut after the Italian manner, short and round, and then frounst with the curling irons to make it look like a half-moon in a mist ; or like a Spaniard, long at the ears and curled like to the two ends of an old cast periwig ; or will you be Frenchified with a love-lock down to your shoulders...'"

After the barber finished with the hair, he'd attack the the beard. There were several ways to fashion the facial hair. Beards and mustaches could be formed into the Roman T, a stiletto-beard, soldier or spade beard, bishops beard, or the well known Vandyke. You could have the "court cut, and country cut." You could look fierce to your enemy or friendly to the ladies.

Some barbershops created a veritable spa environment. Their nose and ear hairs were snipped. They'd foam and wash the patron's beard, dab it with fragrant waters, and anoint his closed eyes, then pull a rotten tooth. 

Or should the barber have pulled the tooth, first?

For more reading on London 1660's (and one French Revolution novel), please see:
http://www.amazon.com/Katherine-Pym/e/B004GILIAS

Resource: At the Sign of the Barber's Pole, Studies in Hirsute History by William Andrews, Cottingham, Yorkshire, J.R. Tutin, 1904

Rightful Head of England: Pope vs. King

By Rosanne E. Lortz

We thought that the clergy of our realm had been our subjects wholly, but now we have well perceived that they be but half our subjects, yea, and scarce our subjects: for all the prelates at their consecration make an oath to the Pope, clean contrary to the oath that they make to us, so that they seem to be his subjects, and not ours.

On May 11, 1532, King Henry VIII uttered this complaint to Parliament, that the clergy of the realm cared more for the Pope’s commands than they did for his own. Any Tudor-phile can tell you what happened next. Two years later Henry issued the Act of Supremacy, severing the connection with Rome and making himself “the only supreme head on earth of the Church in England.”

But how did the Church of England become so reliant on the Church of Rome in the first place? How did the Pope, the bishop of the far-away city of Rome, gain authority over what happened in the British Isles?

Augustine of Canterbury

The story of the Pope’s involvement with the island of England goes back to the sixth century, nearly a thousand years before Henry VIII’s complaint. The island of Britain had been evangelized by Christian missionaries in the first several centuries A.D., but after the invasion of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, it became pagan once again. In the late sixth century, Pope Gregory the Great, the bishop of Rome, felt a great burden to Christianize these people. Bede records that Gregory, “prompted by divine inspiration, sent a servant of God named Augustine and several more God-fearing monks with him to preach the word of God to the English race.”

With his mission accomplished, Augustine sent to Rome “to inform the pope St Gregory that the English race had received the faith of Christ and that he himself had been made their bishop. At the same time he asked his advice about certain questions which seemed urgent.”

What follows is a list of questions about liturgy, governance, and conduct, but the important thing is the way it is phrased. Augustine seeks Pope Gregory’s advice.

The Pope, as the successor of Saint Peter and the ruler of the “apostolic see”, had always been seen as an important spiritual leader in the Church, but it is anachronistic to suppose that he wielded as much power in the early church as he did in days of the Tudors. Historian Gerd Tellenbach notes that after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the foundation of new kingdoms by the Germanic tribes, “the national and regnal churches were to a greater or lesser extent autonomous and not easily influenced from outside.”

Tellenbach confirms what we observe in Bede, saying:

Only exceptionally did popes play a significant role beyond their own region before the middle of the eleventh century. They were normally active only when called upon to be so, not on their own initiative; their advice or judgements were not compulsory; they could be accepted, ignored, or rejected at will.

In the centuries subsequent to Augustine’s missionary activities, we see the English kings looking up to the Pope with respect and rendering them obedience in spiritual matters. One example of this is Alfred the Great who, as a young child, accompanied his father on a pilgrimage to Rome to see Peter’s Successor. The Pope later became a godfather of sorts to Alfred, but he made no attempt to interfere with his subjects’ loyalties.

Pope Gregory VII

What happened then in the eleventh century to change things? Several successive “Reform” popes, Gregory VII being the most famous, saw it as their divinely-appointed task to combat corruption in the church. One especial sin that needed to be purged was “lay investiture,” the practice of political rulers appointing men for church office. In response to the Holy Roman Emperor arrogating to himself the power to appoint bishops, the Pope arrogated to himself the power to depose emperors (by excommunicating them, and thus freeing their subjects from the necessity of obeying them).

Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor whom Gregory would depose, saw no justification for the Pope throwing his weight around in such a manner:

You dared to threaten to take the kingship away from us—as though we had received the kingship from you, as though kingship and empire were in your hand and not in the hand of God…. As the tradition of the holy Fathers has taught, I am to be judged by God alone and am not to be deposed for any crime unless—may it never happen—I should deviate from the Faith. For the prudence of the holy bishops entrusted the judgment and the deposition even of Julian the Apostate not to themselves, but to God alone. The true pope Saint Peter also exclaims, “Fear God, honor the king” (I Peter 2:17). You, however, since you do not fear God, dishonor me, ordained of Him.

The battle between the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor would soon have repercussions in England. In 1162, the English king Henry II installed his friend Thomas Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury. Unfortunately for the king, Becket soon came to see that his own ordination was just one example out of many of how Henry was encroaching upon the liberty of the church. He rebuked Henry for these incursions and took it upon himself to become the church’s defender.

The murder of Thomas Becket

The story of the conflict between the two men is famous, and I will not take the time to tell it all here; however, it is interesting to note the role of the Pope during these events. When Becket excommunicated lower clergymen who had dared to side with Henry, they appealed to the higher authority of the Pope in order to have their excommunications revoked. Several times throughout the conflict, both Henry and Becket appealed to the Pope to give a ruling, not in the sense of giving advice, but in the sense of giving a binding judgment. These instances show how a formal hierarchy had developed with the Pope at the apex, and how papal power was continuing to increase throughout the twelfth century.

The rule of Henry’s son John in the thirteenth century would see an even greater increase in papal power. When John tried to follow in his father’s footsteps and select the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Pope Innocent III rebuked him and put forward his own candidate for the position. John refused to comply. Pope Innocent put England under an interdict, prohibiting the clergy from conducting any religious services. John seized the lands of the clergy who followed the Pope’s orders. More excommunications and seizures of money followed. When John still proved recalcitrant, the Pope incited the French king to prepare an invasion against him (not that Philip II needed much incitement…). Fearful of an attack from France, John finally submitted his will to the Pope’s, and did homage to Innocent for the country of England.

Innocent’s letter to John following these events shows how outrageous the papal aggrandizement of power had become:

The king of kings and lord of lords, Jesus Christ…has set over all one whom he appointed to be his vicar on earth so that, just as every knee on earth and in heaven and even under the earth is bowed to him, so all should obey his vicar and strive that there be one fold and one shepherd. The kings of the world so venerate this vicar for the sake of God that they do not regard themselves as reigning properly unless they take care to serve him devotedly. Prudently heeding this, beloved son…you have decreed that your person and your kingdom should be temporally subject to the one to whom you knew them to be spiritually subject, so that kingship and priesthood, like body and soul, should be united in the one person of the vicar of Christ to the great advantage and profit of both. 

The Popes of the next three centuries tried, with varying degrees of success, to maintain the high position to which Innocent had elevated the papacy, but their rhetoric and resplendence never quite measured up. When the Pope removed to France for seventy years during the Avignon Papacy, the English lost a great deal of respect for Peter’s Successor. After winning one of the early battles of the Hundred Years’ War, the English bandied about a jest (which, yes, also appears in the Heath Ledger movie A Knight’s Tale), saying, “The Pope may be French, but Jesus Christ is English.”

The Papal Schism which followed the Avignon Papacy in 1378, saw two different Popes battling for the position over the course of forty years. This weakened the Papacy even further as France, the Spanish kingdoms, and Scotland supported one Pope while England and the Holy Roman Empire supported the other.

By the time Henry VIII took the throne in England, the papacy was not as much of a force to be reckoned with. The Pope was still a political player in Europe, but no longer the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room.

So, all this goes to show that when Henry VIII was complaining to Parliament of the Pope’s undue influence over English clergy, what he really should have been doing was counting his blessings. If he had had Innocent III to deal with instead of Clement VII, he might have met his match, he might have stayed married to Catherine of Aragon, and he might never have become the star of a Showtime television series. The title of "Supreme head of the Church in England" would have remained with the Pope, and the ill-fated Anne Boleyn might have contrived to keep her head.

Henry VIII, painted by Hans Holbein the Younger

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Rosanne E. Lortz is the author of two books: 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

Bede. The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969.

Tellenbach, Gerd. The Church in Western Europe from the Tenth to the Early Twelfth Century. Trans. Timothy Reuter. UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Tierney, Brian. The Crisis of Church and State 1050-1300. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988.

The Feuding Hanoverians

Frederick, Prince of Wales

Arguments within the Royal Family have always existed, but the Hanoverian monarchs took their animosity into legend that scandalised even the tolerant English. With their reputation for uncontrollable rages, they all seemed to take pleasure in publicly humiliating their children. George I ejected his son, George Augustus and daughter-in-law Princess Caroline of Ansbach from St James Palace for a presumed slight to the Earl of Newcastle at their son's christening. They were literally ejected from the palace and their honour guard removed, banished for two years and their three daughters, Anne, Amelia and Caroline forbidden to live with them.

In his turn, George Augustus became George II, having not seen his own son, Frederick Prince of Wales for thirteen years. When he came to England with his father in 1715, George Augustus left his eight-year-old son in Hanover to keep a 'presence' there, the boy expected to preside over official occasions, despite Frederick's repeated requests to join his parents and siblings in London. Frederick had also continued to be known as Prince Frederich Ludwig of Hanover (with his British HRH style) even after his father had been created Prince of Wales.

It's not unreasonable to suppose this separation was insisted upon by Frederick's grandfather, George I - a man who imprisoned his own wife for the majority of her life for having an affair with a Swedish army officer - who incidentally disappeared on his way to his mistress' apartment - probably murdered on George I's orders -but that's another story.

King George II and Queen Caroline of Ansbach

Hardly happy families, exacerbated when King George II favoured child was Frederick's younger brother, Prince William, Duke of Cumberland, to the extent that the king looked into ways of splitting his domains so that Frederick would succeed only in Britain, while Hanover would go to William.

Augusta, Princess of Wales

Despite being a spendthrift and womaniser, Frederick settled down to married life with the seventeen-year-old Augusta of Saxe-Gotha in 1736. When Augusta fell pregnant, Frederick announced the child would be born in October, when in fact she was due to give birth earlier.

In July, the entire family were at Hampton Court for the summer, with Queen Caroline determined to be present at the birth of her grandchild. Traditionally, royal births were witnessed by members of the family and senior courtiers to ensure the parentage of the royals, but Caroline announced tactlessly, 'I will be sure it is her child'.

Perhaps feeling insulted that his mother questioned the baby's paternity, when Augusta went into labour, Frederick bundled his eighteen-year-old wife out of her bedchamber and down a flight of stairs to a coach. Deaf to the protests of his wife and her ladies, with two of her dressers, they rattled through the fifteen miles to St James' in seventy five minutes, while the ladies and the Prince had to hold down the screaming princess.

Frederick complained afterwards that the force he had to use gave him a terrible ache in his back!

When the party reached St James', Frederick ordered the lights extinguished so the servants would not see the gruesome evidence of 'his folly and her distress'. When Queen Caroline heard what had happened, she, Lord John Hervey, and two of her daughters, raced to St James's Palace where she found her newly born grandaughter wrapped in table linen due to the fact no preparations had been made for a birth.

Caroline was at first sympathetic to 'the poor little creature', but soon declared her relief that Augusta had given birth to an 'ugly little she-mouse' rather than a 'large, fat, healthy boy' which made a deception unlikely since the baby was so pitiful. The child was named Augusta after her mother, but not surprisingly,  this incident shocked the court, and deepened the estrangement between mother and son.

Frederick and Augusta were abruptly banished from St James Palace, their guard of honour removed, and with no time to pack, their clothes were thrown into laundry baskets. A rival court grew up at Leicester House, the same property his father had run to when George I had administered the same treatment to himself and Caroline years before.

Princess Augusta of Wales

Frederick hated being apart from his mother, but when Princess Caroline fell ill after an operation for an untreated hernia later that year, King George refused him permission to see her.

Surprisingly, after this treatment of his wife, Frederick became a devoted family man of eight children (his youngest daughter was born posthumously) They lived in the countryside at Cliveden, where he fished, shot and rowed. He died in 1751 at the age of 44, but did not outlive his father, thus it was Frederick's son, George, who succeeded the throne as George III in 1760.

The Prince of Wales' epigram -from William Makepeace Thackeray, "Four Georges"

        'Here lies poor Fred who was alive and is dead,
        Had it been his father I had much rather,
        Had it been his sister nobody would have missed her,
        Had it been his brother, still better than another,
        Had it been the whole generation, so much better for the nation,
        But since it is Fred who was alive and is dead,
        There is no more to be said!'

The Disorganised Author Blog

A Timeless Romance Anthology: Winter Collection, by Heidi Ashworth et al.

UPDATE: The winner of this giveaway is Mary Preston!

For this week's giveaway Heidi Ashworth is offering A Timeless Romance Anthology: Winter Collection. Go HERE to see the beautiful cover and find out which charming stories it includes. This book is available in electronic format for Kindle or Nook. Enter to win by leaving a comment on this post.

A Surprising Greek Hero: The Very English Lord Byron

George Gordon Byron, the 6th Baron Byron, was one of the more colorful characters of the late Georgian period. Many remember him to this day for his poetry and his many, many scandalous love affairs. After all, this was a man at one point was declared (albeit by an ex-lover) as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know."

There was another side to this man, though. This practical and political side would lead this English poet to have a small role in the history of labor and the history of another nation: Greece.

For Lord Byron, one artifact of his birthright was a seat on the House of Lords--a fortunate convenience for a man very critical of the status quo. Byron's poetry was often full of scathing critique and satire of both domestic and international political issues, and he made many impassioned speeches in Parliament to champion the causes he felt just. His first period in Parliament (March to June 1809) was brought to an end by a trip to Europe. He would later return to Parliament in 1812 though his permanent departure from England in 1816, forced both by rumors about his behavior and heavy debt, would end his domestic political career.

During his time in Parliament, Lord Byron championed many reformist causes, or by some people's reckoning, revolutionary causes. For example, he supported Irish independence both in poetry and political speeches:

"Thus has Great Britain swallowed up the Parliament—the constitution—the independence of Ireland, and refuses to disgorge even a single privilege, although for the relief of her swollen and distempered body politic."

He later would even pen poetry suggesting some support for the independence of India. These were not exactly popular positions at the time.

He also supported the Luddites. They were an anti-industrialization movement centered around textile workers whose jobs were being eliminated by new technologies. Protests turned to a campaign against mills in the north of England. The destruction of mills combined with attacks on magistrates lead to the deployment of thousands of troops against the Luddites.

As one can surmise, the Luddites were not some genteel opposition movement. They were a near revolutionary force that conservative aristocrats viewed with disgust and trepidation. In contrast, Lord Byron, who viewed the Luddite cause as arising from social justice concerns by people being harmed and destroyed by dubious automation that benefited others more than the workers, supported the movement both in Parliament and in his poetry. Whether one thinks him a fool or praises him for that, it definitely was a very radical position.

Even after leaving England, he would continue to contribute to political newspapers and discussions, generally supporting causes that placed him firmly in opposition to many landed, aristocratic interests. A lot of this was heavily influenced by his Romantic worldview.

Byron later became involved with the Greek independence movement. At the time, the Greeks were under the heel of the Ottoman Empire. He'd spoken and written of his belief in Greek independence for some time, but the start of open insurgency in 1821 further crystallized his support. While some of this support was just part of his natural tendency to support most independence movements,  Greece also held a special place in the hearts of many Western intellectuals of the period due to its ancient contributions to Western thought.

Generous financial and literary support by Byron gave way to more direct military aid in 1823, including his formation, using his own money, of the Byron Brigade (including refitting warships). Besides his equipment, he ended up in command of Greek rebel soldiers.

Despite his literary talents, he had no military experience at all, but it seems the Greeks weren't going to risk offending a man who was giving them a considerable amount of money and for whom they had a great deal of respect anyway. He was to take part in a major assault on a Turkish fortress, Lepanto, but before the force could depart toward the objective, he fell ill. Over the next few months he fought disease, incompetent  doctors, and infection until finally succumbing to his aliments at Missolonghi, Greece on April 19, 1824 at the not so ripe age of 36.

Despite his very minimal involvement in the actual fighting, years of financial, political, and literary support garnered him a large amount of Greek respect. In Greece, many still consider him, despite his non-Greek background, a hero of the Greek War of Independence. There was even a three-day period of mourning following his death there and a city northeast of Athens still named after him, Vyronas (Βύρωνας). His death in Greece helped focus even more international attention on the conflict and arguably helped to contribute to the entry of other Western powers on the Greek side.

Pretty good for a man who was "mad, bad, and dangerous to know."

"A very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed...."

by Grace Elliot

To Hodge.

"…a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed."
Dr Samuel Johnson.

Hodge- appropriately sitting on a dictionary!

Lexicographer and writer, Dr Johnson, was a cat lover. It was whilst he was in residence at 17 Gough Square, London, that he owned his most well-known cat, Hodge. To this day a statue of Hodge, appropriately seated on a dictionary, forms part of a memorial to the great man, at the far end of the square where he once lived. 

Indeed, such was Johnson's love of cats that the diarist and biographer, James Boswell, thought to record it. 

"Nor would it be just….to omit the fondness which he [Johnson] shewed for animals which he had taken under his protection."

This kindness extended to visiting the fish market in person, in order to select the best oysters for his cat since Johnson didn’t want to put the servants out and cause resentment against Hodge.

"I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat: for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should take a dislike to the poor creature."

Boswell

Boswell must indeed have been a firm friend and admirer of Johnson, since he himself disliked cats and was most probably allergic to them. 

"I am, unluckily one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, frequently suffered a good deal from the presence of this same Hodge."

 Johnson, however was unstinting in his affection for his feline companions, as Boswell goes on to record.

"I recollect him [Hodge] one day scrambling up Dr Johnson's breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back and pulled him by the tail." 

The plinth of Hodge's statue.

Poor Boswell seems to have at least made an effort to fit in with his cat-loving friend as this excerpt recounts.

"When I observed he was a fine cat….[Johnson] saying 'Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats better than this.' And then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, 'but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.' "

And the final words go to Percival Stockdale in this excerpt from his elegy on the death of Johnson's favourite cat:

 Shall not his [Hodge] worth a poem fill,

Whonever thought, nor uttered ill;
Who, by his master when caressed
Warmly his gratitude expressed;
And never failed his thanks to purr,
Whene'er he stroaked his sable furr [sic]?
The general conduct if we trace
Of our articulating race,
Hodge's example we shall fine
A keen reproof of human kind.
He lived in town, yet ne'er got drunk,
Nor spent one farthing on a punk;
He never filched a single graot,
Nor bilked a taylor of a coat;
His garb when first he drew his breath
His dress through life, his shroud in death.

Hodge - with his favourite snack, an oyster.

Post written by Grace Elliot.
Grace lives near London, where she works as a veterinarian. By night, Grace writes historical romance, much to the delight of her five cats - all vying for lap space. Her debut novel, ‘A Dead Man’s Debt’ was described as “historical romance at its best”, by The Romance Reviews.
To find out more about Grace and her novels, please visit:
http://www.amazon.com/Grace-Elliot/e/B004DP2NSU/ref=sr_tc_2_rm?qid=1320779346&sr=1-2-ent

Or her blog: Fall In Love With History  http://graceelliot-author.blogspot.com

Click for link.

'Let the Cat out of the bag...'

By Jonathan Hopkins

 

 Flogging - the very word conjures images of backs scarred for life by the instrument of this largely military form of torture - the cat o’ nine tails.

The British army and navy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries comprised huge numbers of ‘volunteers’. Whether these men took ‘the King’s shilling’, were made offers they could not refuse by magistrates or were legally ‘impressed’ to serve by navy shore-parties, many proved unsuited to military life and its harsh discipline. Theft and insubordination, even violence and desertion, were commonplace.

To maintain order a simple to administer punishment was needed, the severity of which could be varied to fit the crime. Not only that but it had to be enough of a deterrent to plant fear in the hearts of potential offenders. Flogging was such a punishment. And the preferred instrument of martial law was the Cat O’ Nine Tails.

Widely used by the end of the 17^th century, the cat was a whip made from heavy cable (rope).  A four-foot length was split into its three component strands to produce a two-and-a-half foot tail, each strand being separated again into three to produce the requisite nine ‘tails’. These were knotted at the free ends to prevent fraying and the handle part then back-spliced both to provide a good handgrip and stop it unravelling, though in later examples the nine lashes were bound to wooden handles. Once made the cat was stored in a canvas or baize bag ready for use, from whence the title of this post comes.

Methods of punishment was roughly similar in army and navy. The guilty man would be tied hand and foot to some suitable structure: in the navy a ship’s grating (hold cover) tied upright, in the army a triangle made of three sergeant’s halberds lashed together. Apparently cavalry regiments, which had no halberds, habitually used a vertical ladder. The ship’s crew or soldier’s regiment were formed up and made to watch, presumably to remind them of the consequences of rule-breaking.

A drum-major, cavalry farrier-major or boatswain administered the punishment, the number of strokes having been previously agreed at the victim’s trial. Men chosen for this task needed to practice: the whip had to be applied only across shoulders and upper back , avoiding the more vulnerable neck and kidney areas. 25 lashes was considered a minimum number of strokes in the army, with 1200 the maximum allowed. The latter was almost a death sentence, to be administered only to the most serious offenders. And to ensure the prisoner was fit to take his punishment, a surgeon had to be present. He could step in at any time to stop the flogging if the condemned man lost consciousness, or too much blood, but if the punishment was curtailed for medical reasons that might not be the end of it. The man was allowed to recover, for days or weeks, before whatever remained of his sentence was carried out.

In the navy a seaman might be flogged ‘around the fleet’ as an example to others, his sentence in number of lashes being divided between ships. After having the requisite number on his own vessel he would be cut down and taken by tender to the next where he was re-tied and ‘catted’ again.

A navy rope cat was usually replaced after a single use unless a number of men were being flogged when it would be scrubbed in a bucket of seawater between prisoners. Unbeknown to those involved this made navy floggings less likely to result in infected wounds, when added to the fact navy punishments were often for fewer lashes. Seamen were less easily replaced than landsmen, and one who could not do his job while flogging wounds healed not only meant his shipmates had to cover his work as well as their own but his absence from duty might compromise the ship’s performance in action. Notwithstanding this it is reckoned more than 50 men were flogged for various offences aboard Victory in the weeks before the Battle of Trafalgar. And on the already horrendous retreat to Corunna in 1809 General Edward Paget had drawn his regiments of the rearguard into a square ready to flog three men for looting when he was told the enemy were only several hundred yards behind them!

Despite the Duke of Wellington’s insistence his ‘scum of the earth; could not be controlled without the lash, George III was never fond of flogging, and as the 19^th century drew on the number of lashes permissible was reduced. Perhaps the increasing use of whipcord and leather-thonged cats caused more severe injury in fewer strokes than the original rope whips. With the rise of more effective communications, increased awareness of the effects of flogging caused disquiet among the general population, and several high profile cases where men died after being whipped hastened the end of the cat: its use was abolished on mainland Britain in 1871. It could still be used abroad, however.

The navy kept the cat, but use declined until in 1879 it too was banned by the Admiralty. The writing was on the wall, and following the senior service’s lead, the following year the army got rid of the lash. The last British soldier was flogged in July 1880, in Afghanistan, for sleeping on sentry duty. The ban was confirmed by Act of Parliament the following year.

The reminders were a few horribly scarred backs, and soon they too were lost to time until only a phrase remained...

Jonathan usually writes about British cavalry during the Napoleonic Wars.
Find out more at Cavalrytales

New Brighton – A Victorian Seaside Resort

By Tony Franks-Buckley

Following the mass population growth that occurred during the British Industrial Revolution, Seaside resorts became a popular destination for the working class citizens in Britain. Separated by the River Mersey, Liverpool was the neighbouring city that looked across at the borough of Wallasey, and became a weekend retreat for many of the fun seekers that resided in the industrial region of Liverpool. In order to reach the destination, the famous “Ferry across the Mersey” was the viable form of transport.

Until 1891 the river front was open to the shore. The only built up areas being the Ferry terminals. If a traveller on the river prior to this period looked toward Wallasey he would have seen mainly eroded clay cliffs supported by a large masonry wall (1858-1863). It was impossible to pass directly from Seacombe to Egremont via this route. At the Guinea Gap there was an actual hole in the cliff in which the tide had carved out a large hollow. From Egremont to what is now New Brighton, existed only private properties occupying the foreshore.

In 1896, New Brighton was given a brand new feature when work started on the Tower & Ballroom. The New Brighton Tower was patterned on the world-famous Eiffel Tower in Paris. It all started when a newly formed company called The New Brighton Tower and Recreation Company Limited, with a share capital of £300,000 decided to purchase the Rock Point Estate of over 20 acres. The Tower was to be 544 feet high, with Assembly Hall, Winter Gardens, Refreshment Rooms and layout with a cycle track. The Tower was to be more elegant than Blackpool's. Shares were £1 each and the Tower would be made of mild steel.

During the construction of the Tower six workmen were killed and another seriously injured either though falls or accidents. On completion the Tower was the highest building in the country. Soon after the Tower was opened a young man threw himself off the balcony to be the first suicide from the building. Four lifts took the sightseers to the top of the structure at a cost of 6d. From there you could see for miles around including the Isle of Man, Great Orme's Head, part of the Lake District and the Welsh Mountains. The Tower is said to have attracted around half a million people in the year.

Along with the Tower a ballroom was built and was one of the largest in the world, with a sprung floor and dance band stage. The orchestra had as many as 60 players and well over 1,000 couples could dance without overcrowding, it was decorated in white and gold, with emblems of various Lancashire towns. There was a balcony; with seats to watch the dancers below and behind this was an open space where couples could learn to dance. There was also a fine Billiard Saloon with 5 billiard tables and above the Ballroom was a Monkey House and Aviary in the Elevator Hall, there was even a Shooting Gallery!

As well as the Tower and ballroom the area was surrounded by a Tower Gardens Complex. The Tower Gardens covered something like 35 acres in all, with a large Japanese Cafe at the lakeside, where real Gondoliers had Venetian Gondolas. There was also a fountain and seal pond in the old quarry, with its rockery. Then there was a Parisian Tea Garden where one could have a cup of tea while watching the Pierrots. Towards the river end, there was an outdoor dancing platform which held a thousand dancers, where the Military Band played, stating at 9 o'clock in the morning in the height of the season. Above the dance floor was a high wire for tightrope walking, without any safety net. The tightrope walker was a man by the name of James Hardy, who had a bet with another man that he could walk across the rope with a girl on his shoulders. He won his bet when he carried the barmaid from the Ferry Hotel across his back which was quite an interesting tale to have been told.

There were also other light orchestras which played here and at variety performances in the theatre in the afternoon. A good restaurant called "The Rock Point Castle" was situated amongst the trees, with lovely pathways to wander around. The Tower grounds had their own private Police force of up to 15 men would parade around and keep order.

However the tower did not last for long, the outbreak of the First World War the public were not allowed to go up to the top of the Tower for military reasons. In the war years the steel structure was neglected and became rusty through lack of maintenance and the cost of renovating was more than the owner could afford so sadly this became the beginning of the end of the tower. The top portion of the structure commenced to be dismantled on 7th May 1919 and was completed in June 1921. The brick portion comprising of the Ballroom and Theatre remained, together with the turrets. During the Second World War the basement was used as a communal air-raid shelter.

The Fairground remained with the Ballroom and other surrounding features until its final fate during the fire of 1969. The Old English Fairground was on a higher level which, in later years, became the motor coach park. The Himalayan Switchback Railway was a great favourite, as was the water chute, with the boats travelling down at speed into the lake. The Railway had previously been at the Brussels Exhibition. In the Lion House were 'Prince' and 'Pasha', two beautiful Cape Lions. There was also a good collection of other animals in the menagerie.

By 1961, the park had changed significantly, with several new rides and sideshows. The photograph was taken from the cable car ride, which whisked passengers from the beach level, to the upper areas of the park. The Beatles also around this time played the Tower Ballroom; this was proof of how popular New Brighton was at the time. The Beatles final appearance at the Tower Ballroom took place on Friday 14 June 1963 on a special NEMS Enterprises presentation of their 'Mersey Beat Showcase' series. The Beatles were supported by Gerry & the Pacemakers and five other groups.

Disaster struck in 1969. The fire, the fourth that the tower had suffered, started on Saturday 5th. April 1969. The call was received at Wallasey Fire Station just after 5am in the morning, where by now I was employed as a full time Fireman. The manager and staff had left the building the night before about 8-30pm. after a routine check, the stage area was not included in their check! A police constable discovered the fire in the stage area in the west wing of the tower early next morning. In the 1970s, the area where New Brighton Tower once stood was redeveloped as River View Park.

Sadly the Tower Ballroom fire in 1969 became the end of an era in New Brighton which never recovered or rebuilt after the incident. The fire was the end moment for the area with the fairground closing immediately, leaving only the New Brighton Palace as a place for small entertainment compared to the delights that were previously on offer before the fire. This became the beginning of the end for the once popular seaside resort, unable to compete with nearby resorts such as Southport and Blackpool it withered away and soon became a forgotten area which has seen a dark era for well over 40 years.

The area has been given a new facelift in the last few years, thanks to the investment of Peel Holdings Ltd, who have regenerated the Marine Point area. The beginning of a new dawn has arrived and hopefully this will encourage tourism back to the resort, but never will it be as popular as it was during the 19th century.

If you would like to read more about New Brighton and Wallasey, I have written a book titled The History of Wallasey – A Small Suburb with a Large History. The book is available for purchase at Amazon. The book is available in both Paperback & Kindle Formats.

If you are from the UK, you can purchase the book HERE.

Or if you are from outside of the UK please Click HERE.

Lady Hester Stanhope-A Regency Character if Ever There Was One

by David W Wilkin

Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope

March 12 1776 to June 23 1839

Her prominence is from 1803 to 1806 when she served as Hostess for her uncle, William Pitt the Younger

She was the eldest child of the 3rd Earl of Stanhope, whose wife was sister to William Pitt the Younger, and in 1800 went to live with her grandmother, the Countess of Chatham, widow of the William Pitt the elder. So Lady Hester could be counted to have lived in the households of the highest political circles. Her grandmother, the countess, Hester Pitt, who our Lady Hester was obviously named after died in 1803 at the age of 82. Our Hester was then 27 and still unmarried. She was on the shelf in our regency terminology.

At this time, Pitt the Younger was Prime Minister and also unmarried. (Nothing scandalous here I believe though Lady Hester was accounted a great beauty) The Prime Minister needed a hostess and his niece had just finished doing duty to his mother. She did this task with great success and when Pitt was out of office, she served as his private secretary.

She was the initiator of the gardens at Walmer Castle while Pitt was Lord Ward of the Cinque Ports.

Upon his death the government awarded her £1200 a year. She first lived in Montagu Squar in London, then moved to Wales but left England for the second act of her life in 1810.

It is claimed that when she and her party (which included a man who became her lover) arrived in Athens, Lord Byron dived into the sea to greet her. En route to Cairo her ship encountered a storm and was shipwrecked on Rhodes. (Again, another classic heroic tale) All possessions gone, the party had to borrow Turkish clothes. Here Lady Hester wore male garb. And this was how she met the Pasha. (Again, classic heroine stuff here.) For the next two years she visited Gibraltar, Malta, the Ionian Islands, the Peloponnese, Athens, Constantinople, Rhodes, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria.

Her entourage to visit Palmyra was so large (22 camels just for her luggage) she was greeted as Queen Hester.

In 1815, she was now a fixture of the middle east. A document came into her possession that said a great treasure was hidden in the ruins of the mosque in Ashkelon. She journeyed there, and the governor of Jaffa was ordered to accompany her. They did not find the three million gold coins she thought she would find. But they did find a seven foot headless marble statue. She ordered it to be smashed into a thousand pieces and thrown into the sea. Aside from the horrific destruction, this was considered the first modern archealogical excavation of the Holy Lands.

One should note that Lady Hester began her travels and continued them while the Napoleonic Wars were taking place.

Now the last act of her life was her settling permanently in the Middle East. She settled in Sidon, in now Lebanon. These last years she provided sanctuary to the Druze and the local emir, Bashir Shihab II who at first greeted her with courtesy turned against her. However she had such power that she had near absolute authority over the surrounding districts. Truly, ‘Queen Hester.’ Ibrahim Pasha had to consult with her when he was about to invade Syria in 1832.

This did change. She accumulated debt, and when the money ran out, she became a recluse. Her servants began to take off with her possessions when she could not pay them any longer. She would not receive visitors in the end until it was dark, and then they would only see her hands and face. She wore a turban over her shaven head.

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Mr. Wilkin writes Regency Historicals and Romances, Ruritanian (A great sub-genre that is fun to explore) and Edwardian Romances, Science Fiction and Fantasy works. He is the author of the very successful Pride & Prejudice continuation; Colonel Fitzwilliam’s Correspondence. He has several other novels set in Regency England including The End of the World and The Shattered Mirror. His most recent work is the humorous spoof; Jane Austen and Ghosts, a story of what would happen were we to make any of these Monsters and Austen stories into a movie.

And Two Peas in a Pod, a madcap tale of identical twin brothers in Regency London who find they must impersonate each other to pursue their loves.

The links for all locations selling Mr. Wilkin's work can be found at the webpage and will point you to your favorite internet bookstore: David’s Books, and at various Internet and realworld bookstores including the iBookstore, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords.

He is published by Regency Assembly Press

And he maintains his own blog called The Things That Catch My Eye where the entire Regency Lexicon has been hosted these last months as well as the current work in progress of the full Regency Timeline is being presented.

You also may follow Mr. Wilkin on Twitter at @DWWilkin

Mr. Wilkin maintains a Pinterest page with pictures and links to all the Regency Research he uncovers at Pinterest Regency-Era