The Ubiquitous Servant

by Maria Grace

Servants find their way into nearly every work of historical fiction, a familiar stock character in any era. The role and situation of the servant changed dramatically through the ages, in some cases little better than slaves, in others, like the late Georgian/early Victorian era, a person with recognized rights and responsibilities in the eyes of the law.

In the early to mid-1800’s many young people began their adult lives with positions in service. Many moved on to marriage (for the women) or other forms of work. Some remained in service all their adult lives progressing through the ranks to the upper servants ranks: housekeepers, butlers and housestewards. Many households, and nearly all that reached above the lowest classes employed at least one domestic servant.

Servant’s Wages

General recommendations suggested that for incomes of over a thousand pounds a year, about one third of that should go to household expenses and one quarter towards servants and equipage (horses and carriages), the same amount suggested for clothing and other extras. In general, the greater the income, the more servants and the more specialized the servants. A small household might have only one maid of all work whereas a large one might have upper maids, lower maids, laundry maids, dairy maids, nursery maids, still-room maids, scullery maids and a housekeeper to oversee them all.

Most considered an annual income of at least one hundred pounds or guineas a year to be the minimum necessary to employ a servant. At this income level, a household could hire a single young maid servant. (Female servant’s salaries were lower than male servants and the Male Servant Tax 1777-1852 made male servants more expensive to employ.) The expected salary for such a servant would be from five to ten guineas a year, depending on her capabilities.

At an annual income of two hundred pounds, an experienced maid of all work might be hired with an annual salary of twelve to fourteen guineas, but a male servant would probably not be hired until an income level of five to six hundred pounds a year was reached. A male servant’s wages began at around twenty guineas a year for an under footman. A butler might earn fifty and a French trained man-cook eighty. The top paid female servants, the housekeeper and lady’s maid might be paid as much as thirty guineas, notably less than the male servants.

As with the Commander of an Army

"As with the commander of an army, so it is with the mistress of a home" Beeton (1861) wrote. Though the mistress of a household might not be employed outside the home, she had a full-time occupation managing the servants and all the household work. In very large establishments, a housekeeper might manage many of the lower female servants; the mistress was ultimately responsible for directing the housekeeper, governess and lady’s maid. In smaller establishments, the mistress and her daughters might very well work alongside a maid of all work, or even several maids in order to accomplish all that needed to be done in the household. Even if she did not, the mistress of the household had to have a solid understanding of how each task must be done in order to properly supervise the servants.

Often the mistress of the household was herself responsible for hiring (and dismissing) servants. In doing so, household manuals such as Mrs. Beeton’s recommended that she obtain not just a letter of character, but interview the candidate’s previous mistress to ascertain the suitableness of the candidate for a position. Such consideration was important as servants became a kind of dependent upon the family to whom the mistress owed a particular duty of benevolence.

Servants who became ill could not, by law (Adams,1825) be dismissed during the duration of their employment contract. The mistress of the household had the responsibility to see to their proper medical treatment, food and comfort during their illness. Mistresses were encouraged to allow the servants to join family devotions and endeavor to make the servants "spend the Sabbath properly". Day to day, she would both promote their comfort and oversee the steady performance of their duties. Though cautioned not to become overly familiar with her servants, still mistresses were urged to treat them with kindness, gentleness and respect for their feelings.

Desirable qualities for servants

Young persons, on their first entering into service, should endeavor to divest themselves of former habits, and devote themselves to the control of those whom they engage to serve… They will wisely take advantage of the opportunity which Providence fortunately presents to them, to cultivate their minds and improve their principles… They will eagerly embrace every opportunity of learning everything that may be useful to themselves, and of doing anything that may be useful to others. (Adams, 1825)

Though some manuals considered time spent in service as an opportunity to improve one’s character, these same manuals also recommended particular necessary traits for good servants. Mistresses desired servants who were industrious, early-rising, punctual and orderly in their work. Similarly, honesty, loyalty, and cleanliness were also valuable. These traits are similar to those employers would look for today.

Due to the live-in, community nature of the servant employing household, several additional qualities were regarded important. These included, good temper, particularly necessary for getting along both with other servants, and for enduring a cranky mistress ranked high among desirable traits. Humility, modesty and temperance all made it far easier for servants to get along in the household, as did the avoidance of tale bearing. One household manual even devoted an entire section of how female servants were to treat others in the household so as to get along best with everyone.


References

Adams, Samuel, and Sarah Adams. The Complete Servant; Being a Practical Guide to the Peculiar Duties and Business of All Descriptions of Servants ... with Useful Receipts and Tables,. London: Knight and Lacey, 1825.

Barker, Anne. The Complete Servant Maid or Young Woman's Best Companion. Containing Full, Plain, and Easy Directions for Qualifying Them for Service in General, but More Especially for the Places of Lady's Woman, Housekeeper, Chambermaid, Nursery Maid, Housemaid, Laund. London: Printed for J. Cooke, No. 17, Pater-Noster Row, 1770.

BEETON, Isabella Mary. The Book of Household Management. Edited by Mrs. I. Beeton, Etc. [With Illustrations.]. London: S. O. Beeton, 1861.

Cosnett, Thomas. The Footman's Directory, and Butler's Remembrancer Or, the Advice of Onesimus to His Young Friends: Comprising, Hints on the Arrangement and Performance of Their Work ; Rules for Setting out Tables and Sideboards ; the Art of Waiting at Table, and Conduct. London: Printed for the Author ;, 1823.

Household Work, Or, The Duties of Female Servants Practically and Economically Illustrated, through the Respective Grades of Maid-of-all-work, House and Parlour-maid, and Laundry-maid : With Many Valuable Recipes for Facilitating Labour in Every Department. London: J. Masters, 1850.

The Servant's Guide and Family Manual: With New and Improved Receipts, Arranged and Adapted to the Duties of All Classes of Servants ... Forming a Complete System of Domestic Management. 2d ed. London: J. Limbird, 1831.

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 Maria Grace is the author of Darcy's Decision,  The Future Mrs. Darcy, All the Appearance of Goodness, and Twelfth Night at Longbourn and Remember the Past.  Click here to find her books on Amazon. For more on her writing and other Random Bits of Fascination, visit her website. You can also like her on Facebook, follow on Twitter or email her.

The Third Crusade: an Early Mishap at Lyon, 10 July 1190

by Charlene Newcomb

King Richard I

When Richard became King of England in 1189 the pilgrimage to the Holy Land to free Jerusalem became his top priority. After his coronation, Richard set the kingdom in order and raised monies to support the undertaking. Richard’s fleet sailed towards Gibraltar intending to meet him in Marseille. His army of pilgrims – or crusaders, as we refer to them now – gathered in Tours in the spring of 1190. By early July, Richard and King Philip of France concluded discussions at Vézelay setting the conditions of their cooperation.

From Vézelay, the pilgrims marched south towards Lyon. Contemporary chroniclers describe the locals’ reactions and the grandeur of the armies, thousands strong. The discipline of the soldiers impressed them. “Who could stand against their force? What a beautiful company, what handsome youths!” Ambroise and the author of the Itinerarium claim the English and French troops numbered near 100,000 – a huge exaggeration. We can only estimate the actual numbers. Author David Miller suggests that when the army began its coastal march south from Acre in August 1191, the French and English forces numbered approximately 1,600 knights and over 14,000 foot soldiers.

On the 10th of July in 1190, Richard and Philip arrived in Lyon. The mishap here on the River Rhône – early in the crusade timeline – could have proven disastrous. In his Annals, Roger de Hoveden writes,

When they had arrived at the city of Lyons on the Rhone, after they with the greater part of their households had passed over the bridge across that river, the bridge, being thronged with men and women, broke down, not without doing injury to great numbers. Here also the two kings separated…

A second account of the incident comes from Ambroise. He describes the scene as utter chaos. Hundreds of people, animals, and wagons plummeted into the rapidly-raging river:

But those who in the morning passed?
Crowded the bridge so thick and fast?
Misfortune did them overtake.
For one span of the bridge did break
Because of the waters treacherous,
Swollen so high and perilous.
For weight of men more than an hundred
O’ertaxed the pine arch till it sundered;
The arch fell and they tumbled in,
And there were shouting, groans and din…

The Itinerarium mentions that the bridge was extremely high, the drop to the river below far enough that many could have died. Onlookers raced to pull victims from the swift current. Incredibly, the chroniclers report that only two people died. Were the numbers underreported, reflecting only those of noble birth? Many historians suggest only "important" deaths were recorded, and therefore, we will never know the true death toll.

De Hoveden has no further comment on the aftermath of the bridge collapse. None of the accounts reflect whether King Richard witnessed the incident, but the Itinerarium describes those who had not yet crossed the river as “at wit’s end.” None wanted to be left behind. The chronicler claims Richard oversaw the construction of a floating bridge built of boats lashed together. The king would have read of the idea in De Re Militari, a treatise of military principles and practices written by Publius Falvius Vegetius Renatus. Amboise does not mention the bridge of boats, but writes that small skiffs were used to ferry people to the opposite riverbank. Both accounts indicate the incident delayed the march south by three days.

What gives one pause is that one month earlier and two thousand miles away, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa met his fate at the Saleph River in Turkey. His horse slipped and Frederick fell into the river and drowned. It was a devastating blow for his followers, only one-third to one-quarter of whom – perhaps 5,000 men – continued on to the Holy Land. During the siege of Acre, these troops reported to Duke Leopold of Austria, a man who would become King Richard’s bitter enemy.

What if the Lionheart had been on the bridge when it collapsed and had died at Lyon? Would Richard’s forces have been thrown into disarray as Barbarossa’s had? Would Philip of France have forsaken the pilgrimage to pursue his desires to regain French territory and to remove the Angevins from the continent? Christians besieging Acre would have been left without reinforcements. They were in dire straits, having suffered repeated attacks by Saladin’s forces. It is likely the siege of Acre would have failed. Acre, other coastal towns, and Jerusalem would remain in Muslim hands. The Third Crusade might not have been.

Sources 

Ambroise. (1976). The crusade of Richard Lion-Heart. (Trans. by M.J. Hubert.) New  York: Octagon.

De Hoveden, R. (1853).  The annals of Roger de Hoveden, comprising the history of England and of other countries of Europe from A. D. 732 to A. D. 1201. (Henry T. Riley, Trans.). London: H. G. Bohn. (Original work published 1201?)

Miller, D. (2003). Richard the Lionheart: the mighty crusader. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Nicholson, H., & Stubbs, W., trans. (1997). Chronicle of the third crusade : A translation of the itinerarium peregrinorum et gesta regis ricardi. Aldershot, Hants, England ; Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate.

Painting of Richard I by Merry-Joseph Blondel. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

An earlier version of this post was originally published at http://charlenenewcomb.com/2014/07/10/10-july-1190-the-bridge-on-the-river-rhone/ 

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Charlene Newcomb is the author of Men of the Cross, Book I of Battle Scars. A tale of war’s impact on a young knight serving Richard the Lionheart and of forbidden love, this historical adventure is set during the Third Crusade. Book II, For King and Country, will be published in 2015. Visit Charlene’s website http://charlenenewcomb.com, find her on Facebook at CharleneNewcombAuthor, and on Twitter @charnewcomb.

Book links: Amazon  B&N

The Medieval Mews

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

Falconry in medieval times was exceedingly popular, particularly amongst the nobility. Probably originating in the middle or Far East (both China and Persia are credited with the first recorded accounts of falconry nearly two thousand years ago, but it may be even older) while the earliest known practise in England occurred well before the arrival of the Normans.

The masters who captured, trained and cared for the birds were much prized and honoured, as were the birds themselves. Falconry was both a favoured sport and a means of hunting food, especially fresh meat for the winter months. Although the vast popularity has diminished in recent times, and today’s attitude is more towards the preservation of these raptors in the wild, the love of the sport is still considerable. The capture of hawks and falcons for sale in medieval times was legal under particular circumstances and in some places whereas today it is definitely not, and falconers must breed their own birds in captivity. However, even back then poaching wild birds was forbidden, and there were severe punishments and considerable imprisonment handed out for anyone who damaged nests, eggs or young birds.

The mews was a quiet and ordered place where the birds perched in silence on their individual stands, tethered by their jesses, and their heads hooded (thus the word hoodwinked was adopted). A hooded bird sleeps, as do birds in the wild when they tuck their heads beneath their wings. Indeed, it is now interesting to remember that birds are the direct descendants of the theropod dinosaurs, (including T Rex) and of course eagles and other birds of prey are the most direct line. To be able to ride out with a dinosaur on your wrist, is certainly a rare and special pleasure, although naturally this particular aspect was unknown to the medieval world.

During the Middle Ages, some much loved birds were treated as honoured companions, were taken to church by their owners, and were included in their master’s prayers. King Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor in the early 13th century, was an ardent falconer; he wrote a definitive book on the subject and was famously painted with his falcon at his side. It is further recorded that many lords turned to falconry after tragic events in their personal lives and treated the sport as a form of solitary and thoughtful therapy.

One of the other principal differences back then was the strictly ordered status of particular birds of prey and the limitations placed on who might properly fly them. In England, as in many other western countries, only those of a certain rank were permitted to fly certain birds. The beautiful gyrfalcon was the bird of kings, and few mews would own such a bird. The peregrine falcon was for the exclusive use of the king’s sons whereas other falcons were allotted to dukes and earls. The baron flew a hawk, and knights, squires and others were permitted lesser birds. The ladies flew merlins, priests flew sparrowhawks, and ordinary mortals were able to hunt only with kestrels.

How strictly these rules were kept, we cannot know. Certainly other laws of status regarding, for instance, clothing and materials, were clearly flouted on a regular basis. However, the rules governing falconry were probably adhered to by most.

The acquisition and training of birds of prey was then, and still is, a highly expensive business, but for those who practise falconry it seems that the pleasures far outweigh the difficulties. Many birds of prey are monogamous and eventually come to consider the falconer their mate. And I have known falconers who cheerfully believe this in return. The same was certainly true in the Middle Ages. The head of the medieval mews was the Master or Lord Falconer, who was truly the master of the art. It was a life-long commitment.

Others employed in the mews were the cadgers, and these were often retired Master Falconers, still working with the birds they loved. The term ‘old codger’ originated from the Cadger of the Mews, as did the verb ‘to cadge’. Other terms (some of which we may mistakenly think modern) also come from falconry – the boozer, for instance, is adapted from the word ‘bowzer’ which is the term for a drinking bird of prey. Many of our words today come from old habits, sports and behaviours such as mill grinding (to prove your metal) and cock fighting (cock-sure and cockpit) even though the original practises are no longer popular.

Falconry, however, remains popular, especially in some countries. Once every castle had its mews, and every lord practised the art to some degree. That level of enthusiasm is unlikely to return, but a close relationship with birds of prey is one that I consider unmatched in sport.

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BARBARA GASKELL DENVIL has been a writer all her life. Born in Gloucestershire, England, she soon moved to London and quickly built up a career publishing numerous short stories and articles while also working as a literary reviewer and critic for Books and Bookmen, a literary editor, publishers’ reader, and television script writer.

She then spent many hot and colourful years sailing the Mediterranean and living in various different countries throughout Europe.

When her partner died, she moved to rural Australia where she still lives amongst the parrots and wallabies, writing full time before contemplating further travels and a possible return to England.
Her historical crime novel Satin Cinnabar is a medieval adventure which commences on the battlefield at Bosworth 1485 and covers the fist few difficult months of the emerging Tudor dynasty. Barbara’s love of late medieval history and many years of meticulous research have enabled her to bring the period vividly to life.

Her following two historical novels Sumerford's Autumn and Blessop's Wife, both already for sale in Australia, are now being prepared for worldwide distribution and will be available over the next two months.

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Historical Paintings: Authenticity v. Drama

by Anne O'Brien

Is this the real Joanna of Navarre?  If so, it would be a valuable addition to the little we know of this fifteenth century Queen of England.

This is a painting of Duke Arthur III of Brittany, painted by the French artist Henriette Lorimier and exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1806 when Romanticism was the order of the day.

It is of interest to me because it is one of the few representations we have of Joanna of Navarre, second wife of King Henry IV of England.  It shows her, beside the tomb of her late husband Duke John V of Brittany, in the role of caring mother, instructing her young son in the need for piety, in the importance of family history, and in his duty to the role of Duke which he would inherit from his dead father, John de Montfort.  Joanna is dark-haired, attractive, every inch a Navarrese and Valois princess.

I would like to think this would be a valuable image for me in bringing Joanna to life when writing about her.  But how accurate a representation is it?  There is much to intrigue the historian in this painting, and the choice that Henriette Lorimier made when deciding to portray Arthur as the young Duke.

In colouring and appearance of Joanna, we have no historical idea.  It is not on record.  We have no contemporary portraits of her.  If she is seen kneeling at her husband's impressive tomb, it would have been after 1409, when Joanna had personally had the alabaster image sculpted in England and sent to Nantes Cathedral.  She would have been at least 40 years old.  Arthur by this time would have been 16.  Yet both mother and son look younger than this - clearly to maintain the romantic image of the young and beautiful widow and the young child with all the duty on his shoulders.  As Queen of England, Joanna never returned to Brittany to see the tomb completed, as far as the records show. 

It could be argued of course that this image was from the date of Duke John's death in November 1399, in which case Joanna was only thirty one, and Arthur was six years old, which makes the image more realistic, but still does not explain the magnificent tomb beside which she is kneeling.

Another interesting point: Arthur was not the heir to the Dukedom when John de Montfort died.  Why chose to paint this child, receiving his mother's encouragement and instruction?  The heir was another John, the eldest son, who became John VI on the death of his father in 1399.  So why paint Arthur?

The choice of costume is also highly romantic.  Joanna is wearing a fur trimmed cote-hardie, which by 1409 would have been regarded as not the height of fashion by members of the Court.  Joanna, who was known to spend extravagantly on clothes, would have worn a houppelande with its high neckline and heavy folds, and her hair would certainly have been covered with a veil or one of the fashionable rolled chaplets or a caul.  Her hair would not have been uncovered in public as it is here.  As for Arthur, he appears to be wearing something  romantically childlike for 1409.  I expect that the artist thought that a romantic, easily recognisable 'medieval' image was more important than authenticity.

And finally to return to why Henriette chose to paint Arthur.  He actually became Duke of Brittany but not until 1457 in the final year of his life, taking the title after his nephew Peter who died childless.  Arthur was 64 years old when he became Duke.  Was he chosen for the subject of this highly romantic picture because he played a notable part in French history?  He fought alongside Joan of Arc.  He was Constable of France and a notable leader of the French army, taking an important part in the negotiation to bring peace between France and Burgundy at the Treaty of Arras. This alliance led ultimately to the end of English pretensions to the French crown.  Furthermore Duke Arthur led the French army in the battle of Formigny in 1450 which resulted in the conquest of Normandy.  Thus Arthur was undoubtedly a heroic figure in French military history.  I can only presume that this was the reason for this painting in the nationalistic days of Napoleonic France.

What a sentimental portrait this is. Do the historical inaccuracies matter?

I would suggest that accuracy has no bearing on the subject.  It was not painted to make a genuine historical comment but to heighten the emotion of the relationship between the young widowed duchess and her little son, to tug at the heart-strings of the onlooker.  It makes her an appealing figure, which is what was intended.  As long as we know the intentions of the artist, then we are able to appreciate the worth of this romantic painting.

As an interesting post script; this painting gained an immense success when it was exhibited in 1806. Empress Joséphine immediately purchased it for her paintings gallery at the Malmaison.

My novel of Joanna of Navarre, The Queen's Choice, will be published in Hardback and eBook in January 2016, followed in May in Paperback.

www.anneobrienbooks.com

The Secret World of the Author of The Secret Garden and A Little Princess: Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett

by Stephanie Cowell

If we are born across the sea from England, our first visions of it are often formed by the stories we read when young. And mine were absolutely created when I first read the pages of A Little Princess and The Secret Garden. Many years later, I love these novels utterly. I still read the part of A Little Princess with my little heart beating fast when the now impoverished Sara Crewe wakes up in her wretched cold attic room to find it magically decorated and dinner in covered dishes on a lovely cloth and fire in the hearth and a warm comforter protecting her from the damp English winter night. And when she is finally discovered to be a lost little heiress by the kind gentleman who lives next door, I feel an uprising of joy.

the edition I read at the age of 8

In fact I never walk of streets of London without hoping that somehow I will find that tall boarding school house on a foggy gaslit street and that garret window where Sara is waiting for me; I never go to the Yorkshire moors without searching from the car window for that huge lonely estate where the child Mary Lennox comes to live, and the walled locked garden whose key she finds and where she discovers her life.

When I first read the novels, I gave little thought if they had an author; it was as if the lives of Sara and Mary had passed through time from their English worlds to my rather lonely New York City childhood when only books seemed real. Their world was where my heart lay. But there was an author, of course, though my own children were grown before I bothered to research who she was and when she wrote.

Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett was born in Lancashire, England in the city of Manchester in 1849 to a family in comfortable circumstances; her father died when she was young.  She was a story teller from an early age. In 1865, when she was sixteen, her now impoverished family emigrated to the United States, settling near Knoxville, Tennessee. She soon fell in love with a young man called Burnett who was lame, perhaps shades of the sick boy in The Secret Garden. And to earn money for her family, she began to write.  Frances married Burnett and they moved to Paris for a time where he became a doctor but the pressures of being a mother, running a house, and writing so much led her to exhaustion and depression.  Frances wrote and wrote and wrote; many of her adult books were best-sellers. She lived a very nice lifestyle (do note her dress and hair in the photograph!) and would do anything for her two sons. She once called herself “a pen driving machine.”

The elegant author!

In 1887 she traveled to England with her family and then to Florence where she wrote an early version of the novel that would become A Little Princess, then called Sara Crewe or What Happened at Miss Minchin's.  Tragically, three years later she would lose her older son. Several years following, Frances divorced her husband and married a younger English actor. She bought an English mansion whose walled garden inspired The Secret Garden. When she first found the garden it was utterly overgrown; she actually discovered it by a seeing a robin fly above the wall as Mary Lennox does and then found the door hidden among the ivy. Francis restored the garden and wrote there dressed in white. But the marriage failed.

In 1905 A Little Princess was published, after she had reworked the play into a novel. She returned to a home in Long Island to be near her surviving son and died some years later at the age of 74.

As a novelist myself, I like to look at why someone chooses the stories they do. Like Sara Crewe, Frances'  father died when she was young, leaving her in near poverty.  Like Mary Lennox, she found a secret garden which gave her great peace and made it a place of beauty.  Like both Sara and Mary, Francis Burnett had a tremendous inner resilience and strength; she had a will to endure under all circumstances.  She left England as an adolescent in poverty; she returned to buy a glorious mansion. Like the boy in her less famous novel Little Lord Fauntleroy, she found an upper class lifestyle. (Her sons when little were dressed like the little lord in velvet, lace, with long curled hair.)

You can buy what is listed as Frances’ Complete Works on Kindle for $1.99. I counted 37 novels quickly….and all written with pen and ink! Whew.

The beloved 1993 movie

But authors are not their books or perhaps they are: perhaps we put our deepest longing selves into what we write. Years ago when I bought a biography of Burnett (Waiting for the Party by Ann Thwaite), I was dismayed to read what a restless, driven, conflicted person she was. I guess I was looking for the peace that Mary and Sara find by their stories’ end. Yet whatever Frances Hodgson Burnett’s struggles, she gave us two of the most beloved books in English children's literature, And I like best to think of her dressed in white sitting in that restored English garden full of roses writing in peace.

So there, dear reader, we will leave the author of these beloved books behind her locked garden door until the sparrow flies down and shows us also where the key is hidden.

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Stephanie Cowell is the author of Nicholas Cooke, The Physician of London, The Players: a novel of the young Shakespeare, Marrying Mozart and Claude & Camille: a novel of Monet. She is the recipient of an American Book Award. Her next novel is on the love story of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning to be followed by the conclusion of the Nicholas trilogy and an Edwardian love story between two men in the English midlands. Her work has been translated into nine languages. Her website is http://www.stephaniecowell.com. e-mail: StephanieCowell@nyc.rr.com

Germanic Mercenaries – Friend or Foederati?

by Elaine S. Moxon

From the 1stC to the 5thC AD Britain was the northern-most province of the Roman Empire: the land of Prydain or the people of the designs. It was a green and prosperous land.

Its most coveted commodity was the Birrus Britannicus, an exceptionally well-made hooded cloak of the finest wool found in the Empire – from the sheep farms of central Britain. Long before the Saxons gave it the name Cotes Wolds (sheep on uncultivated open land) it was an area synonymous with a thriving wool trade and famous for its longhorn sheep.

However, it was not a peaceful province. Legions stationed at Glevum (the busy fort at Gloucester on the mouth of the river Severn) and Vindolanda (Hadrian’s Wall) had to contend with barbarian incursions from the Pictii and Scotii of the north and the Menapii and Silures of North Gymraeg (Wales). These invasions required large numbers of men permanently stationed at these troubled outposts. Rome’s solution was to bolster the numbers with Limitanei, or second-class troops consisting mostly of Germanic mercenaries.

The Huns in Asia were forcing their way west, and rising sea levels were destroying farmland, so entry into the Roman army provided opportunity and security for many Germanic people. Given the title Foederati (from the Latin ‘foedus’ meaning ‘treaty’, by which these tribes and their leaders were bound), these mercenaries received land on which to settle in return for their services, and tribes could fight under their own Germanic leaders.

This was the spark of inspiration for the back story of my Saxon tribe, the ‘Wolf Sons’ who give their name to my novel Wulfsuna; a young leader, seeking self-advancement and adventure abroad leaves behind his troubled homeland to enlist his war-band in the Roman army on the isle of Bryton.

However, for the Foederati in Britain things would soon turn sour. In 408/9AD Saxons invaded the east coast of the isle. Rome decreed Limitanei should defend the shore forts there and hold back the increasing threat from across the Germanic Ocean. Numbers in the Roman garrisons had dwindled as the Empire had sought to bring back as many soldiers as possible. Alaric I, leader of the Visigoths (a Germanic tribe with Foederati status) had repeatedly held siege on Rome, eventually succeeding in sacking the city after three days of looting and pillaging in August 410AD. Thus back in Britain Germanic mercenaries were left to fight Germanic invaders. Kin was pitted against kin. Needless to say this might have sat uncomfortably with many.

Knowing the Empire was abandoning the isle and leaving them to their fates I wondered if these Foederati fought or joined the invaders. I wondered where their loyalties would lie. It is noted many returned to Rome when the legions were recalled. There is a story that when one such legion arrived in Rome, the city closed the gates on them, believing them to be an approaching army of invading barbarians, for they wore their own garments and not that of the Roman Empire.

But what if not all of these Foederati went back to Rome? It is known that many soldiers of Rome married native women from where they were posted. It was feasible these Germanic mercenaries could have done the same. After a decade or so on the isle with Brytonic wives, families, homes and livelihoods would these men have wanted to leave? Probably not. Although there would be some, perhaps young men, who may have chosen to return to the Fatherland. All of these factors became my inspiration for Lord Wulfric and his Wolf Sons of Germania.

Life for native Britons in AD433 varied greatly depending on where you had been living at the time of the Roman Empire’s departure. Rising seas had affected coastal forts like Glevum where the inhabitants were eventually flooded out and trade ceased. Brytonic tribal leaders who had welcomed trade with the Romans and exported their Birrus Britannicus throughout the Empire, like my character Huweyn, would now have to seek fortunes elsewhere. Clients closer to home such as the Menapii for instance in North Gymraeg would have to suffice; They had links with the Irish port of Dublin, popular with men from Nord Veg, or ‘North Way’. And perhaps settling Saxons, who continued to arrive on the east coast, may have provided custom. Not all Germanic tribes came to trade though, and so the question for Huweyn would be, are they friend or foe?

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Living near Icknield Street, one of the ancient trade routes crossing central England, inspired Elaine to investigate who traversed these roads and for what purpose. Bordering the kingdom of the Hwicce and living in close proximity to Alfred the Great’s Wessex further ignited her interest. From these influences and two simple rune stones the Wolf Spear Saga was born. Wulfsuna, first in the series, is a tale of blood, betrayal and brotherhood steeped in magic, folklore and that most feared lady who holds our destiny in Her hands – fate.

Elaine is currently writing book two of the series, set in AD460.

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Just how dirty were the Anglo-Saxons?

by Richard Denning

We tend to think that the majority of the people that came before us were dirty and smelly - maybe with the exception of the Romans and their bath houses. Was this true of the Anglo-Saxons? What evidence is there of their bathroom habits? One item which has been found in many burial sites from the pagan era (roughly 5th to 8th centuries) are sets of usually bronze or sometimes bone consisting of usually three items. There were tweezers for cutting nails or removing unwanted hairs, little spoons for scooping wax from your ears and picks for removing dirt from behind the finger nails.


So they seemed to bother about their nails. They also took care of their hair. Many combs have been found in graves and these are usually made from bone, antler or horn.


What about bathing and washing? Well it seems that the Saxons were not regular practitioners of whole body immersion. Even so they would bath a few times a year and particularly when they got married. They would also use baths as a medicinal method. This is shown by recipes in Bald's Leechbook (a  collection of Anglo-Saxon cures). For example, Oakbark was used in baths to ease aching thighs. He also refers to the herb Lion's foot, baths of which can help a "bewitched" patient. Whilst whole body bathing was less commonly done, washing of the hands and feet was done daily, and usually they would wash hands before a meal. Indeed, the washing of hands at the start of a feast was, it seems, part of the ceremony. The Sutton Hoo burial included, suspended in chains, a fine bowl in which all guests would be invited to wash their hands before eating - a sensible precaution given the fact that you were often eating with your hands and taking food from common bowls and plates.


Even though the Anglo-Saxons might not bathe often, they were familiar with a huge range of plants and herbs - like Rosemary and Lavender which have strong aromas and could be used when washing one's hair, clothes or hands or just around the house to fragrance it. In conclusion, they may not have been as clean and well groomed as modern tastes may prefer, but I am sure they would not have stunk to the extent we might expect.

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

Richard Denning is a historical fiction author whose main period of interest is the Early Anglo-Saxon Era. His Northern Crown series explores the late 6th and early 7th centuries through the eyes of a young Saxon lord.

Explore the darkest years of the dark ages with Cerdic.
www.richarddenning.co.uk                                                                                      Amazon

Thomas McKean - 1734-1817 - A Short Biography

by Lindsay Downs

Thomas McKean was born to William McKean and Letitia Finney on March 19, 1734 in New London Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania. His parents, of Ulster-Scots heritage, immigrated to Pennsylvania as children. Thomas received his basic education, possibly at home, until age nine, at which time he and his eleven year old brother, Robert, were sent to study under the tutelage of Rev. Francis Allison, D.D. at the New London Academy.

After completing his studies Thomas went to Newcastle, Delaware to study law under his cousin, David Finney. Some months later he was appointed as a clerk to the prothonotary of the Court of Common Pleas. Through his hard work, talent, and industriousness, he was admitted as an attorney in the Court of Common Pleas to Newcastle, Kent, and Sussex before age twenty-one. He subsequently was admitted to the Supreme Court.

By the time he reached his majority Thomas McKean was over six feet tall. Frequently he was see wearing a large cocked hat, fashionable at the time, and was never without his gold-headed cane. It is said that he had a quick temper and a vigorous personality. He had a thin face, a hawk’s nose, and his eyes would be described by some as ‘hot’. Some wondered at his popularity with his clients, as he was known for a “lofty and often tactless manner that antagonized many people”. He tended to be what some might describe as a loner, seldom mixing with others except on public occasions.

John Adams described him as “one of the three men in the Continental Congress who appeared to me to see more clearly to the end of the business than any others in the body.”

Both as Chief Justice and later as Governor of Pennsylvania he could be found at the center of several controversies.

Not wanting to be over burdened with his studies, Thomas, on December 28, 1757, elected to join the Richard Williams company of foot. He would later rise to the rank of Colonel in the militia. (At this time most officer ranks were voted on by the individual militia members and not necessarily by military accomplishments.)

In July 1765, as a judge for the Court of Common Pleas, he established the ruling that all proceedings of the court be recorded on unstamped paper. This is one of the several changes in the courts and Continental Congress he would effect during his life. Each change would have long lasting effects on the country.

Thomas’ political career, which would span forty-five years, started in 1763 when he was elected Assemblyman to the Lower Counties, Newcastle. It would end in 1808 when he left the office of Governor of Pennsylvania. During these years, besides serving as an Assemblyman, he was appointed Judge in the Court of Common Pleas and later as a delegate to the Continental Congress. Once the country was freed from the rule of Great Britain, he was a delegate to the Confederation Congress, serving as its President for a short time.

In 1763 Thomas married Mary Border, his first wife. They had six children. She died in 1773 and is buried at Immanuel Episcopal Church, New Castle. A year later he took Sarah Armitage as his second wife. They lived in Philadelphia and had four children.

At the Stamp Act Congress of 1765 he, along with Caesar Rodney, represented Delaware. It was there that Thomas made another far reaching proposal, a change to the voting procedure in existence at the time. It was later adopted by the Continental Congress and continues to this day in the United States Senate. His proposal was that no matter the size or population of a colony, they would all get an equal vote.

During the last day of the above congress, several members of the body refused to sign the memorial of rights and grievances. He rose from his seat asking why the President, Timothy Ruggles, refused to sign the document. In the ensuing debate, Ruggles said it was against his conscious. The orator that he was, McKean disputed and challenged his use of the word ‘conscious’. He issued a challenge to Ruggles; said challenge, a duel, was accepted and witnessed by the whole body.

No duel ever took place as Ruggles left early the next morning. Ruggles, now disgraced, fled back to Massachusetts where he became a leading Tory. He later fled to Nova Scotia.

Throughout a majority of his early political career, before the colonies separated from England, he was a delegate in Delaware while Philadelphia was his primary residence.

In June 1776, when the debate for independence began, Caesar Rodney was absent, having returned home to Delaware. With George Reid against it, McKean sent a dispatch to Rodney requesting he ride all night, if necessary, so as to break the tie.

It is believed by most citizens today that the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776; in actuality it was signed by almost all of delegates on August 2, 1776.

Thomas Jefferson, President of the Congress, and the secretary affixed their signatures to the original. However, there is some controversy as to whether they did sign the document that day.

On July 5th, McKean, now a Colonel in the associated militia, marched with his men to Perth Amboy to assist Washington in the defense of New York. In a letter dated July 26th, he described a narrow escape from cannon fire. This letter helps to establish the necessary timeline for near future events. (By current road travel it is approximately seventy-five miles from Perth Amboy to Philadelphia, a good hard day's ride at the time.)

As a descendent of Thomas McKean, I was always told that he didn’t sign the Declaration of Independence until years later, in 1781. It was only by doing the research for this biography that I learned he signed on the same day as the others present. McKean returned to Philadelphia on August 2, 1776 when the engrossed copy of the Declaration of Independence was signed.

The original document was deposited with the Secretary of State, but when the printed copy was released McKean’s signature was found to be missing in both the 1777 and 1800 editions. I would now like to refer you, good reader, to a letter written in his own hand to Mr. Alexander J. Dallas of Pennsylvania. The letter is dated 26th September, 1796, and it was subsequently published in ‘Sanderson’s Lives’. I quote in part,

My name is not in the printed journals of congress, as a party to the Declaration of Independence, as this, like an error in the first concoction, has vitiated most of the subsequent publications; and yet the fact is, that I was a member of congress for the state of Delaware, was personally present in congress, and voted in favor of independence on the 4th of July 1776, and signed the declaration after it had been engrossed on parchment, where my name, in my own hand writing, still appears.

It continues,

…that on the 19th day of July, 1776, the congress directed that it should be engrossed on parchment, and signed by every member, and that it was so produced on the 2nd of August, and signed. This is interlined in the secret journal, in the hand of Charles Thompson, the secretary. The present secretary of state of the United States, and myself, have lately inspected the journals, and seen this. The journal was first printed by Mr. John Dunlap, in 1778, and probably copies, with the names then signed to it, were printed in August, 1776, and that Mr. Dunlap printed the names from one of them.

On July 28th, 1777 he received from the supreme executive council the commission of chief justice for Pennsylvania. He was to hold this position for the next twenty-two years, until 1799. To show the impact Thomas McKean had on the judicial system, I quote from biographer John Coleman,

only the historiographical difficulty of reviewing court records and the other scattered documents prevents recognition that McKean, rather than John Marshall, did more than anyone else to establish an independent judiciary in the United States. As chief justice under the Pennsylvania constitution he considered flawed, he assumed it the right of the court to strike down legislative acts it deemed unconstitutional, preceding by ten years the US Supreme Court’s establishment if the doctrine of judicial review. He augmented the rights of defendants and sough penal reform, but on the other hand was slow to recognize expansion of the legal rights of women and the process in the state’s gradual elimination of slavery.

One of the few black marks against McKean during his twenty-plus years as Chief Justice occurred in 1788. An incident occurred between him and Eleazer Oswald. Oswald, in the newspaper of which he was editor, tried to prejudice the people for him and against the court, Oswald being the defendant in the case. In the editorial, he cast the justices in a very unflattering light. Incensed at Oswald’s accusations, the justices fined him ten pounds and sentenced him "to be imprisoned for a space of one month, that is, from the fifteenth of July to the fifteenth of August." At that time a month was twenty-eight days, so Oswald demanded his release from the sheriff. The sheriff, not knowing what to do, consulted McKean. He, McKean, not aware the sentence was for “the space of one month” ordered the sheriff to detain the prisoner until August 15th. Upon learning of his mistake, McKean then reversed himself, ordering Oswald freed.

On September 5, 1788 Oswald petitioned the General Assembly where he stated the proceedings against him. He then complained to the august body of the decision against him, specifically pointing a finger at the Chief Justice, Thomas McKean and the sheriff. The House as a whole held a hearing for three days. After several motions, one of which was made by a Mr. Finley against the justices that they had exceeded their constitutional powers, he asked that the Assembly "define the nature and extent of contempt…". Mr. William Lewis, for the judges, said that the legislature was confined to making the laws, thereby they, the Assembly, can’t interrupt said laws. That was the purview of the justices. He continued on by saying that any recommendations by the Assembly would be negated as the "courts of justice derive their power from the constitution, a source paramount to the legislature, and consequently what is given to them by the former cannot be taken away by the latter."

The motion of impeachment set forth by Mr. Finley lost by a considerable margin, at which time Mr. Clymer renewed the motion of Mr. Fitzsimmons. That motion was passed.

During the course of Thomas McKean’s political career he served as an Assemblyman for the Lower Counties, New Castle from 1763 to 1775. During this period he also served as Judge in the Court of Common Pleas, Lower Counties from 1765-1774 and did a brief stent as a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress in 1765. From 1774 through 1783 he was a delegate to the Continental Congress while holding other posts simultaneously. In short, he was a very busy and popular individual.

From July 10, 1781 to November 4, 1781 he was elected President of the Continental Congress, which presented an interesting dilemma. The Constitution of Pennsylvania forbade the holding of two offices at the same time. It was decided that this didn’t apply to holding offices outside the State, him being a member of Congress from Delaware and the Chief Justice from Pennsylvania. They also learned that others were holding multiple offices.

Three years after the peace treaty was signed with Great Britain, a convention was held in Philadelphia starting on May 14, 1787. Several months later on September 17th the convention adjourned having settled on the Constitution. The Constitution was presented to the states, and even though he wasn’t an original member helping to draw up the document, he was a delegate from Philadelphia. On the 23rd he moved that the document be read, and he repeated the request on the 24th. In a short speech to the assembled members he said they were going into territory never entered before, that he didn’t expect any resolution in a day or a week, and that all opposed to the constitution should be heard. He therefore moved:

That this Convention do assent to, and ratify, the Constitution agreed to on the seventeenth of September last, by the Convention of the United States of America, held at Philadelphia.

McKean eloquently argued in favor of the passage of the constitution, concluding his speech with these words:

The objections of this constitution having been answered, and all done away, it remains pure and unhurt; and this alone as a forcible argument of its goodness * * * * The law, sir, has been my study from my infancy, and my only profession. I have gone through the circle of offices, in the legislative, executive and judicial departments of the government; and from all my study, observation and experience, I must declare that from a full examination and due consideration of this system, it appears to the best the world has yet seen.

Even though there was public opposition to the constitution, and at one point both McKean and James Wilson were burned in effigy, the majority of the populous approved the document. It was ratified by a majority of the States by June of the next year.

On December 17, 1799 he stepped down as Chief Justice of Pennsylvania and assumed the role of Governor of that state. He held the office until December 20, 1808 when he retired from public office.

On June 24, 1817, at the age of eighty-three, Thomas McKean died. His remains were interred and the First Presbyterian Church, Market Street, Philadelphia, later to be removed to the family vault at Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia.

Even though he was the forty-eighth signer, his signature in the third column at the bottom, his grave site was the first to be rededicated by the Society. This occurred on April 16, 2005.

References

Life of Hon. Thomas McKean, LL.D.
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_McKean
Lives of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, Rev. Charles A. Goodrich, 1856

I wrote the above biography on my great grandfather, six times removed for The Society of the Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence of which I’m a lifetime member.

I’ve been an avid reader ever since I was old enough to hold a red leather bound first edition copy of Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake in my lap. So it only seemed natural that at some point in my life I take up pen and paper to start writing. My breakthrough came about in the mid 1970’s when I read a historical romance written by Sergeanne Golon, Angelique. This French husband and wife team opened my eyes to the real world of fiction. Stories about romance, beautiful damsels, handsome heroes, and plots which kept me hooked. Of course, being a man, I had to keep my reading hidden from others as that wasn’t appropriate reading for men.

With this new found appreciation of the written word I took up other books and devoured them. I attempted to write again; I still wasn’t satisfied, so I put it aside for years. Then, in 2006 a life changing event brought me back to my love. I took a job as a security officer. This allowed me plenty of time to read different genres. My favourite was Regency. As I poured through everything I could get my hands on, I knew this would be something I wanted to attempt. In 2012 when my debut Regency romantic suspense released.

Since 2012 I’ve lived in central Texas. I’m also a member of Romance Writers of America and their local chapter.

An Earl’s Queen

A mysterious lady. A secret well-kept. A foiled abduction. These and other events get Lord Anthony, Earl of Wyatt, to start wondering who this Lady Chelsea truly is. All he knows is she’s not the love from his childhood as that Chelsea had drowned ten years ago.
His mother, Lady Rosalind, invites her and Lady Iris, her mother, to visit their estate to participate in a house party. Once there things slowly start to make sense, or so Lord Anthony believes.
What none of them realize, everything isn’t as it seems.
Bit by bit the secret is revealed. Even before everything is laid out Lord Anthony knows he’s found his long lost, thought dead love, in the form of Lady Chelsea. By a stroke of fortune for them, misfortune for someone else she is finally able to recall the events of that dreadful day years ago.
The question which remains is, will Lord Anthony be able to keep Lady Chelsea safe until they wed or will other events prevent it?

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The Effect of Waterloo on Europe and England

by Tom Williams

In 1814, after almost two decades of war with France, the nations of Europe made an alliance that finally defeated Napoleon. He was exiled to the island of Elba, off the coast of Italy. In retrospect, it was foolish to allow him to keep even a token military force, but the Allied powers did and, in February 1815, he sailed from Elba with around a thousand men, landing in France on 1 March.

Although many of the French remained loyal to King Louis, who had replaced Napoleon on the throne, the army defected en masse and he had enough popular support to re-establish himself as Emperor. He even organised a referendum to demonstrate French enthusiasm for his return. At first, Napoleon hoped that the Allied powers who had deposed him would be content to see him return to France provided that he did not seem to pose any threat to the rest of Europe. It quickly became apparent, though, that the Great Powers (Britain, Russia, Prussia and Austria) had no intention of leaving him in peace. Instead they declared him an outlaw (hors la loi) and mobilised their armies to attack France. The Prussians were to join British troops stationed in Belgium so that they could attack Paris from the north, while the Austrians and the Russians moved toward the city from the east.

Napoleon saw his only chance as being to strike before the Allies were ready – not that much of a problem, as the armies were moving very slowly. He decided to strike north towards Brussels. His plan was to drive his own army between the British and the Prussians, who were moving to join them from the east. He reasoned that, if he could attack each army in turn, he might be able to defeat both of them although it would be impossible for him to beat them once they had combined. In those days, when battles were generally won by the larger army, (no tanks or airpower to unbalance the straightforward clash of men) this was not a foolish approach. In fact, it almost worked. On 16 June Napoleon's forces defeated the Prussians at Ligny. The Prussians retreated and Napoleon thought that he could now move on the British, who were outnumbered and outgunned and who were relying on Belgian troops of uncertain loyalty. With some justification, he looked on victory at Waterloo as a foregone conclusion. The affair, he is reported to have said, would be like eating breakfast.

In the event, of course, Napoleon lost the day and, in consequence, his throne and his freedom. But was Waterloo, as many people claim, the decisive battle that defined the future of Europe?

The importance of Waterloo to European history seems, at least, to be somewhat overstated.

For a start, the most important battle probably took place two days earlier. While half of the French army was defeating the Prussians at Ligny, the other half was bogged down in indecisive fighting at a crossroads called Quatre Bras. Wellington had not been expecting an attack directly up that road and Quatre Bras was defended by a pathetically inadequate force of Netherlanders (made up of Dutch and Belgian regiments) under the Prince of Orange. Although many people nowadays regard the Prince as a fool and his troops as cowards, their determined defence of the crossroads against overwhelmingly superior forces allowed the British to reinforce their position and see the French army off. Napoleon had left the taking of Quatre Bras to his Marshal Ney, a heroically brave figure, but hardly a strategic genius. Ney failed to push through the Prince of Orange's defences when a determined attack would have almost inevitably succeeded. Had he done so, while British forces were still marching south to reinforce the Netherlanders, the French could have stormed north toward Brussels, brushing aside any opposition, which would not have had time to take up a proper defensive position. Brussels would have fallen by the end of the day. Indeed, many people in Brussels were fleeing toward Ghent or Antwerp, convinced that that was exactly what was going to happen. With control of Brussels – the British inevitably retreating along their lines of supply to the West – Napoleon would have succeeded in splitting the two armies and, after Ligny, the Prussians were hardly likely to take him on alone. The Battle of Waterloo, far from being won on the playing fields of Eton (something that, incidentally, Wellington almost certainly never said) was probably won at Quatre Bras.

Black Watch at the Battle of Quatre-Bras, 1815
by William Barnes Wollen

The question remains, whether, if Napoleon had captured Brussels, whether by a decisive victory at Quatre Bras or by winning at Waterloo, he could have changed the history of Europe. It seems doubtful. The Prussians, though beaten, were hardly crushed. The Austrian and Russian armies were still ready to fall on Paris from the east. Britain commanded the seas and, if required, could have put another army into the field. Napoleon had united the whole of Europe against him. He was never again going to be able to threaten countries beyond his borders. What a Napoleonic victory might have achieved was to change the future of France. Talleyrand, whose diplomatic genius had served both Napoleon and the Bourbon monarchy, would quite likely have persuaded France's enemies that Napoleon, now reinforced with Belgian troops who would probably have defected back to their old imperial regiments, was best left alone in France. Austria and Russia distrusted each other and the ties between Austria and France (remember that Napoleon's wife was the daughter of the Habsburg Emperor Francis II of Austria) could have been exploited to drive a diplomatic wedge between them. There was, therefore, a small, but real, chance that Napoleon could have been left on the throne in Paris, but with conditions that prevented him from being a threat anywhere else.

Of course, a France under Napoleon might well have served as a rallying point for radical, anti-monarchist factions in other countries – one of the reasons that the Powers would have resisted the idea. The Enlightenment values of Napoleon's rule might have been sustained, his ideas conquering Europe in the same way that his armies had earlier. But this has to be doubtful. Napoleon was, by now, almost as easily identified with the sovereigns he had so affected to despise as with any revolutionary movement. He was in any case a sick man – he was to die six years later – and hardly the energetic genius that he had been at the height of his powers.

It really does seem unlikely that Waterloo changed the history of Europe. It did, however, change the history of Britain. Although Britain in the 18th century was clearly one of the Great Powers, the idea (common amongst Empire enthusiasts) that the British Empire was pre-eminent in an era of colonial expansion is by no means clear. The Napoleonic Wars saw Britain emerge as a leading (in British eyes the leading) European power. Britain was the only country to resist Napoleon throughout the period of conflict. British diplomacy was central to the formation of the many coalitions against France, and British money had financed the wars. Yet direct British military involvement had been mainly limited to the Peninsular campaign. While this had been of crucial strategic importance, it was never the primary focus of the war, and Britain was not among the Powers that fought their way into Paris in 1814. The cataclysmic battle at Waterloo, fought under Wellington as the Allied Commander-in-Chief, left the British convinced of their pre-eminence in Europe, a conviction so strong that it generated its own reality.

Britain never looked at itself in quite the same way again. Waterloo was a powerful symbol of national unity at a time of Corn Law riots and political unrest. The sight of Scots troops fighting so decisively alongside the English led to a new view of Scotland. The Scots had so recently been considered a threat to the Union that the Scots Greys were officially the North British, lest they get ideas about nationhood. Suddenly it was acceptable, even fashionable, to be a Scot. Wellington, now the greatest of British military men, went on to become Prime Minister. There were to be ups and downs in the decades ahead, but Waterloo had both strengthened the unity of the nation and allowed it to accept some of the differences within it.

Scotland Forever! by Elizabeth Thompson

Waterloo also changed the image of the Army. During most of the Napoleonic Wars, and the wars that preceded them, it was the Navy that was, in every sense, the Senior Service. It was the wooden walls that had defended England and saved us from French tyranny. Now, suddenly, the Army took centre stage. The British had long distrusted the standing army, but after Waterloo every soldier was a hero. (It was the first conflict to be commemorated with a medal awarded to all the British participants.) The modern Army has been built on the heritage of Waterloo.

Twentieth century notions of the quintessence of Britishness - coolness under fire, holding firm in the face of overwhelming opposition, even, dare it be said, making a virtue of cobbling together a solution from the limited resources available instead of properly planning ahead - all these things started with images of the Iron Duke and his men at Waterloo and in the days preceding the battle.

Waterloo was - despite its strategic inconsequence - the decisive battle of its age. It defined Britain, it enabled the development of the modern Army and it marked the start of the British Empire. It is unlikely that it had a significant impact on the future of Europe. However those seven hours in June two hundred years ago had an enormous effect on the future of Britain.

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

Tom Williams is the author of the 'His Majesty's Confidential Agent' series, which tells the story of British spy James Burke during the Napoleonic wars. His latest adventure, published by Accent press in May, sees Burke in pursuit of a Bonapartist agent who has tried to assasinate the Duke of Wellington. The story reaches its conclusion on the field of Waterloo.

James Bond meets Richard Sharpe in a thrilling tale set against a detailed historical background. Amazon

When not reading 19th-century books or going to conferences where retired officers talk about *that* battle, Tom enjoys dancing tango and street skating. He also likes to travel and has explored the locations of Burke's adventures in Argentina, Egypt, France and Belgium, which is arguably the best thing about being a writer.