We are thrilled as always, to welcome back Regan Walker, whose latest book in the Agents of the Crown series, ‘Rogue’s Holiday‘ has just been released and for which there are further details of how to obtain a copy at the end of her article. Today Regan is going to tell us more about Prinny’s Brighton, so, over to Regan:
When George, the Prince of Wales, reigned as the Prince Regent, beginning in 1811, and even after he became king in 1820, Brighton on the south coast of England was his favourite destination. It was fifty-four miles from London as the road winds, close enough to travel to in one day. The seaside resort provided all the pleasures of the Beau Monde without the discomforts of town. William Wilberforce, after a visit in 1815, dubbed the town “Piccadilly by the sea-side.”
Brighton loved the Prince Regent. Whatever criticisms he may have faced for his lifestyle, the Brighton newspapers celebrated his frequent visits and looked forward to welcoming all those who flocked the seaside town to enjoy what became “the Brighton Season”.
In 1822, the Brighton Gazette reported:
Gay and fashionable equipages are daily pouring into the town, and every thing gives promise of a brilliant and prosperous winter season. Many large houses on the Cliffs, Marine Parade, etc. have been engaged for Noblemen within the last fortnight… Who indeed would not fly the dirt and smoke of the crowded metropolis for a place like Brighton, where he may at once enjoy the pure and healthful breezes of the ocean, and a salubrious climate, without being subject to the dreary ennui of a country life?
Nash’s ‘Views of the Royal Pavilion’, 1826. Brighton Museums
For the Prince, Brighton became a fantasy escape from his narrow-minded and staid parents who failed to appreciate their son and heir. More than anyone, they were responsible for making Prinny the Grand Corinthian. Thus, it should have come as no surprise that the Prince would build a palace that would be a mogul’s dream where he could entertain his eclectic bevy of friends in grand fashion, including of course, the characters in my story.
The Marine Parade that ran along the shore and the Old Steyne that fronted the Pavilion were wide paths available for a morning or afternoon stroll. But one could certainly keep busy in Brighton. Visitors were offered an endless array of balls, concerts, soirees, private dinners, theatrical events, interspersed with riding, card games and other entertainments.
Nash’s ‘Views of the Royal Pavilion’, 1826. Brighton Museums
The Pavilion’s designer was architect John Nash who built it in three stages until it became the palace we think of today with its many domes and minarets. There, Prinny reigned as the beneficent patron of the foremost artists and literary men of his age and entertained his diverse friends in the rooms decorated in chinoiserie style to look like the home of a Chinese emperor who lived in a kingdom of flowers and perpetual spring. Rooms, such as the Music Room, pictured above, which Prinny kept overheated with candles and gas lamps.
As the town grew, entertainments were added to rival those of London. Hotels, shops, theatres and a racecourse stood at ready. Castle Square next to the Pavilion and half of North Street were the Bond Street of Brighton where one could buy cloth, shoes, cigars, porcelain and many other things. North Street was home to sixty shops by 1820, the year of my story. By 1808, Brighton also had a department store, Hanningtons, on North Street. Added to that, there were dozens of taverns and hotels, that featured balls and card games. All of the taverns, shops, shopkeepers and hotels mentioned in Rogue’s Holiday existed at the time.
The Castle Inn adjacent to the Pavilion had an assembly room and a smaller room used as a tearoom. The Old Ship Inn, the oldest hotel in Brighton, also had a tearoom. And there was yet another tearoom erected in 1805 in the gardens of a public house a mile away in Preston.
Brighton Museums
Among Brighton’s many attractions was sea bathing, where one could be towed to the water in small boxes on wheels to swim, as my heroine does, in the altogether or, if you prefer, in one of the gowns provided. The men’s and women’s bathing areas were separated, of course. Dippers (for women) and bathers (for men) were employed to make sure the person’s head was dipped into the water. Dipping took place year round since the cold water was considered to be good for the health.
Brighton Fishing Boats on the Beach. Drawn and etched by E.W. Cooke, 1829. Pavilion archive
A wholesale fish market was held on the beach, supplied by 100 ships that sailed in the afternoon or evening and returned in the morning. Mackerel were in season from May to the end of July. Also, Sole, Brill, Turbot (common at all seasons) and Dories were in plentiful supply. As you will see in Rogue’s Holiday, while the fish market proceeded on shore, the boats hoisted their nets to dry.
Among Brighton’s most famous residents was Prinny’s Catholic wife, Maria Fitzherbert, a virtuous woman who took her marriage to Prince George seriously even if he did not. All of Brighton respected her. The king must have had her on his mind when he died in 1830, for he was buried wearing a locket containing her miniature.
Mrs. Maria Anne Fitzherbert Thomas Gainsborough – 1784. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco – Legion of Honor (United States – San Francisco, California)
A curious feature in the category of equipages was the fly carriage, a small covered carriage you might see around Brighton drawn by a man and an assistant. They were very convenient for navigating the narrow streets and had room for two. The ones that Prinny and his noble friends used for midnight excursions were dubbed “fly-by-nights”.
Fly by Night c1823 Brighton Museums
Prinny’s yacht, the HMY the Royal George, was commissioned in 1817 and could often be seen anchored off shore of Brighton when he was in residence. In my story, set in 1820, the king invites my characters to dine onboard. Among Prinny’s friends invited that evening were Lord Alvanley, Sir Bellingham and his wife Harriot, Sir John Lade and his wife Letty, and Elizabeth Conyngham, Marchioness Conyngham, the king’s mistress.
I have described the Royal George, in detail as my research provided. The great cabin really did have windows of plate glass, a skylight, gilded dark wood panelling, a Brussels carpet beneath a mahogany table and a pianoforte, among other accoutrements. As my hero, Sir Robert, said, the king liked to travel in style.
The Royal Yacht ‘The Royal George’, at Portsmouth Signed and dated 1820. Royal Collection Trust
Even a spy needs a holiday…
Robert Powell’s work as a spy saves the Cabinet ministers from a gruesome death and wins him accolades from George IV. As a reward, the king grants him a baronetcy and a much-deserved holiday at the Royal Pavilion in Brighton where he thinks to indulge in brandy, cards, good horseflesh and women.
But when Muriel, Dowager Countess of Claremont, learns of Sir Robert’s intended destination, she begs a favour…to watch over an “errant child” who is the grandniece of her good friend living in the resort town. Little does Robbie know that Miss Chastity Reynolds is no child but a beautiful hoyden who is seemingly immune to his charms.
Chastity lives in the shadow of her mother and sisters, dark-haired beauties men admire. Her first Season was a failure but, as she will soon come into a family legacy, she has no need to wed. When she first encounters Sir Robert, she dubs him The Rogue, certain he indulges in a profligate lifestyle she wants no part in.
In Brighton, Robbie discovers he is being followed by friends of the conspirators who had planned to murder the Cabinet. Worse, they know the location of Chastity’s residence.
Below are all the ways you can find out about and purchase Regan’s books, so feel free to click on the highlighted links.
We are always delighted to welcome back the lovely and very informative author Regan Walker. Today she’s going to tell us about what the island of Guernsey would have been like during the French Revolution. So, without further ado, we will hand you over to Regan.
My newest novel, A Fierce Wind, is set in England, France and the Isle of Guernsey during the French Revolution. It’s an exciting story of love in time of war when loyalties are torn and love is tested and when the boy Zoé Donet knew as a child turns out to be the man of her dreams. Since Guernsey has been of particular interest lately, I thought to give you an idea of what life might have been like there in the late 18th century.
Storming of the Bastille, July 14, 1789
With the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, French émigrés began flowing into England and other parts of Europe in successive waves that became a huge tide of emigration. (The number is believed to be one hundred and sixty thousand.) Some fled to Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands, then called “the French Isles” even though they were dependencies of the British Crown. A considerable number of royalist and Catholic émigrés took refuge on Guernsey and a portion of those settled on the island, giving up hope of ever returning home.
Lying so close to France (less than twenty miles from Normandy), the islands not only provided sanctuary to the fleeing French, but they were used by the British as a base from which to monitor the movements of ships in and out of the Normandy’s ports. Hence, it was not surprising that Frederick West, the hero in A Fierce Wind, who lives on Guernsey, became a spy for the English while working with his French brother-in-law to ferry émigrés to London.
Freddie’s superior in London was Evan Nepean, Undersecretary of the Home Office and, after 1794, Undersecretary of War. One of his chief interests during the revolution was intelligence and Captain Philippe d’Auvergne on the Isle of Jersey was a primary contact. In addition to his duties as commander of the flotilla of small gunboats that protected the isles and administrator of the French émigrés, d’Auvergne was a British spymaster.
St Peter Port, Guernsey
Although the Islands have been loyal to the English crown for eight hundred years, the native people would have been of Norman and Breton stock. In the late eighteenth century the majority of Guernsey’s population conversed in Guernsey-French (derived from the old Norman-French with Breton words tossed in), but in the capital, St Peter Port, they also would have had a working knowledge of both French and English.
Jerbourg Point, Guernsey
During the Revolution, people might have been starving in Paris, but on Guernsey, they generally ate well. Good weather and good soil produced a rich bounty of fruits and vegetables. Figs and oranges grew on Guernsey. Healthy cows provided fine milk, butter and cheese, and most households kept a pig or two. Oysters, fish and lobsters abounded. Guernsey fishermen also brought home cod from Newfoundland. Wine and spirits were plentiful, too, and always had been since the isles were home to many privateers.
Even before the French Revolution, Guernsey was an entrepôt, a place for temporary storage of goods and provisions held free of any duty for exportation to another port or country. Being a free port, the British Parliament had no right to levy taxes in the Isles and the Isles themselves had no desire to levy taxes on goods brought to and then exported. Thus Guernsey and the rest of the Isles could import goods from any country, not an enemy of Britain, free of British taxes.
Berthelot Street, St. Peter Port, Guernsey
There were no bonded warehouses in England in the 18th Century, so warehouses were built on Guernsey to store and mature wine and spirits until they were needed in England. During the war with France, Guernsey warehouses were filled with brandy, wine, tea, rum and tobacco, all in high demand and taxed in England. In my story, Freddie’s brother-in-law keeps a warehouse on Guernsey to store his goods.
The first newspaper printed on Guernsey appeared in 1789 under the title of Gazette de L’Ile de Guernesey. It was published every Saturday in French and its size was that of a small sheet of letter paper. It contained local news and items from the Paris journals. In 1791, its publication was discontinued for a short time, but it re-appeared in 1792, under the same title.
In 1794, during the Reign of Terror, the first mail packet sailed from Weymouth to Jersey. Informed that postal packets would be crossing the English Channel to and from the islands, the Admiralty asked that “His Majesty’s Cruisers be directed to keep as far as may be an eye on the Packet Boats to prevent their being taken by the Enemy.” Indeed, protecting one particular packet leads to a battle on the English Channel in my story.
Guernsey was a hopping place!
Love in the time of revolution
France 1794
Zoé Ariane Donet was in love with love until she met the commander of the royalist army fighting the revolutionaries tearing apart France. When the dashing young general is killed, she joins the royalist cause, rescuing émigrés fleeing France.
One man watches over her: Frederick West, the brother of an English earl, who has known Zoé since she was a precocious ten-year-old child. At sixteen, she promised great beauty, the flower of French womanhood about to bloom. Now, four years later, as Robespierre’s Terror seizes France by the throat, Zoé has become a beautiful temptress Freddie vows to protect with his life.
But English spies don’t live long in revolutionary France.
We are absolutely thrilled to be welcoming back the author Regan Walker whose latest book has just been released – A Secret Scottish Christmas and today she’s written a guest blog about orangeries.
Whether you call them orangeries, hothouses, greenhouses or conservatories, buildings in which plants were allowed to grow in an environment sheltered from the weather were much in vogue in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the warm air of these glassed buildings, one could grow flowers (oleander, hibiscus, lily of the valley and camellias, among others), vegetables (kale would have been popular in Scotland), oranges and other citrus as well as other fruits (cherries, peaches, plums, pomegranates and figs). Perhaps most favoured of all were the exotic pineapples.
Orangery at Dyrham Park in South Gloucestershire, England
The name “orangery” reflects the original use of the building as a place where citrus trees were often wintered in tubs under cover, surviving through harsh frosts and snow, as they do in my story, A Secret Scottish Christmas. It is there the heroine often takes her morning runs.
The Romans are credited with the first greenhouses to grow fruits and vegetables, but the Italians are given credit for the orangery during the Renaissance when glassmaking techniques enabled sufficiently large expanses of clear glass to be produced. Though some in Scotland imported citrus trees from Spain, at least one of my sources said it was from Italy the Scots imported small budded orange trees.
Originally built to protect Queen Anne’s citrus trees from the harmful winter weather, orangeries in Britain became status symbols among the wealthy in Scotland as well as England. Early orangeries were built as extensions to the house, heated by charcoal braziers. But, as time went on, it became the fashion to have a separate “greenhouse” and, after 1816 when hot water heating came into being, the heating source might be outside the building.
Orangery at Heveningham Hall in Suffolk built about 1760, designed by the architect Samuel Wyatt
Growing Pineapples in a “Pinery”
Discovered by Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean in 1493, pineapples became a rare delicacy in Europe and were associated with power, wealth, and hospitality. In Britain, the practice of bringing pineapples to the dining table was not just for the aristocracy but extended to the gentry. The list of gentlemen engaged in this horticultural activity includes such notables of Georgian society as the poets William Cowper and Alexander Pope and the architect Lord Burlington.
Pineapple by Theodorus Netscher, 1720
The pineapple was a testament to the owner’s wealth and to his gardener’s skill and experience. Producing a crop of tropical fruit in Scotland before the advent of the hot water heating system in 1816 was a remarkable achievement. Several varieties were grown, but the one most common in Scotland was the Queen pine.
Dunmore pineapple building
The Dunmore Pineapple, a folly ranked “as the most bizarre building in Scotland”, is located in Stirlingshire, Scotland. Dunmore Park, the ancestral home of the Earls of Dunmore, includes a building containing a hothouse constructed in 1761 by John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore. There, among other plants, he grew pineapples.
The south-facing ground floor was originally covered with glass windows. The heat was provided by a furnace-driven system that circulated hot air through cavities in the wall. The smoke from the furnace was expelled through four chimneys cleverly disguised as Grecian urns.
Sir James Justice, an 18th-century Scottish horticulturalist and gardener, developed an incredibly efficient glasshouse on his estate at Crichton, combining the bark pits for succession and fruiting plants under one roof. In a letter to Philip Miller and other members of the Royal Society in 1728, he proudly announced,
I have eight of the Ananas in fine fruit.
Glasshouse cultivation was an important part of 18th-century horticulture and many of the inventions we now take for granted were developed or refined during this period, such as the use of angled glazing, spirit thermometers and the furnace-heated greenhouses called hothouses.
Pineapples growing in pits
Young pineapple plants were often grown in “tan pits” lined with pebbles at the bottom followed by a layer of manure and then topped with a layer of tanners’ bark into which the pots were plunged. The tanners’ bark, oak bark soaked in water and used in leather tanning, was the most important as it fermented slowly, steadily producing a constant temperature for two to three months. It remained in use until the end of the 19th century.
Three developments changed pineapple cultivation: hot water heating in 1816 (allowing the stove and its fumes to be located outside the orangery), sheet glass in 1833, and the abolition of the glass tax in 1845. With these, glasshouses for pineapple cultivation became very large structures.
Enjoy your trip through the orangery at the Stephen estate in Arbroath, Scotland in A Secret Scottish Christmas!
Spies and Scots and Shipmasters, oh my!
Scotland 1819
Twin brothers Nash and Robbie Powell of Powell & Sons Shipping, London, sail with their fellow Agents of the Crown to Scotland for a secret celebration of Christmastide, a holiday long frowned upon by the Scottish Kirk. But more than Christmas is being kept secret. The two brothers have accepted an assignment from the Home Secretary Lord Sidmouth to ferret out a fugitive fomenting rebellion among the Scots.
Aileen Stephen, the only daughter of an Aberdeen shipbuilder, had to be clever, devious and determined to gain her place in the family business. She succeeded to become a designer of highly coveted ships. One night, a man’s handsome face appears to her in a dream. When two men having that same face arrive on a ship full of Londoners, Ailie wonders what her second sight is telling her. Is the face she saw a portender of the future, a harbinger of danger, or both? And which of the two Englishmen is the one in her dream?
Older than Nash by a mere five minutes, Robbie has always been protective of his twin. When he realizes Nash is attracted to the sister of their Scottish host, he thinks to help matters along. But Nash wants no help from his brother, not where Ailie Stephen is concerned because Robbie is attracted to the girl himself!
Two brothers vie for the affection of the Scottish lass but only one stirs her passion. Which one will it be? And what will she do when she learns they are spies?
We are delighted to hand you over to a returning visitor to our blog, the lovely Regan Walker who has been busy carrying out her usual, meticulous research for her latest romantic Georgian romance, Echo in the Wind (to find out more about her latest book, check out the end of this post).
In France
In November of 1782, Joseph Montgolfier, a French manufacturer of paper began to wonder if rising smoke might be used to carry a balloon aloft. With his brother Etienne, he experimented, and by June 1783, the brothers Montgolfier built a balloon made of silk and lined with paper that was 33 feet in diameter. They launched it, unmanned, from the marketplace in Annonay, France. The balloon rose 5,200-6,600 feet and stayed aloft for ten minutes. History was made.
Word of their success quickly spread. The French king, Louis XVI, who was known to dabble in science and a great friend of Benjamin Franklin, desired a demonstration.
For this flight, the Montgolfier brothers constructed a balloon about 30 feet in diameter made of taffeta and coated with a varnish of alum for fireproofing. The balloon was decorated with golden flourishes, zodiac signs, and suns symbolizing King Louis XVI.
On September 19, 1783, the brothers made an unmanned flight before a crowd of 130,000 at Versailles, including King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. This flight was also unmanned. The next step, of course, would be a manned flight.
The first balloon flight with humans aboard, a tethered flight, was performed in October 1783 by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, a French chemistry and physics teacher, and the Marquis François d’Arlandes, a French military officer. Mindful of the dangers, Louis XVI wanted to use prisoners, but de Rozier persuaded the king to let him and the marquis have that honor. The flight was successful.
About a month later, in November 1783, de Rozier and the d’Arlandes made the first free ascent in a balloon, flying from the center of Paris to the suburbs, a trouble-free journey of two hours.
Benjamin Franklin, the diplomatic representative of America, then in France, witnessed the balloon taking off and wrote in his journal:
We observed it lift off in the most majestic manner. When it reached around 250 feet in altitude, the intrepid voyagers lowered their hats to salute the spectators. We could not help feeling a certain mixture of awe and admiration.
The Montgolfiers believed they had discovered a new gas (which they called Montgolfier gas) that was lighter than air and caused the inflated balloons to rise. In fact, the gas was merely air, which became more buoyant as it was heated. The balloon rose because the air within was lighter and less dense than the surrounding atmosphere, which pushed against the bottom of the balloon.
The limitations of using air were soon realized. As the air cooled, the balloon was forced to descend. Keeping a fire burning meant the risk of sparks setting the bag on fire. Other methods were explored, including hydrogen.
On December 1, 1783, Jacques Alexandre César Charles launched a balloon containing hydrogen from the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris before vast crowds.
Jacques Charles and his co-pilot, Nicolas-Louis Robert, ascended to a height of about 1,800 feet and landed at sunset after a flight of just over 2 hours. It is believed 400,000 spectators witnessed the launch. Hundreds paid one crown each to help finance the construction and receive access to a “special enclosure” for a close-up view of the lift off. Among the “special enclosure” crowd was Benjamin Franklin, who had become quite a fan of the aerostatic globes, as he called them. In my new Georgian novel, Echo in the Wind, this new love of Franklin’s is remembered and his thoughts at the time recalled.
In England
The first person in Britain to ascend in a balloon was a Scot, James Tytler, an apothecary and the editor of the second edition of Encyclopædia Britannica.
Notwithstanding Tytler’s achievement, “Balloonomania” swept Britain due largely to the exploits of an Italian, Vincenzo (“Vincent”) Lunardi, who, quite the showman, styled himself as “the Daredevil Aeronaut”.
Following in the footsteps of the Montgolfier brothers in France, Lunardi arrived in London from Italy in the early 1780s determined to demonstrate the wonders of balloon-powered flight.
On the morning of September 15, 1784, nearly 200,000 people watched as Lunardi launched a hydrogen balloon into the air from the Artillery Ground on the northern outskirts of London. The envelope of the balloon was made of oiled silk, and had a diameter of 33 feet.
For the flight, Lunardi was accompanied by three companions: a dog, a cat and a pigeon. A special stand had been erected for George, the Prince of Wales, who tipped his silk hat in deference as the balloon began to rise. The balloon drifted north for 24 miles before landing safely in Hertfordshire.
Lunardi’s balloon was later exhibited at the Pantheon on Oxford Street. Lunardi made five sensational flights in Scotland in 1785, creating a ballooning fad and inspiring ladies’ fashions in skirts and hats. (The “Lunardi bonnet” is mentioned in the poem To a Louse by Robert Burns.)
The age of the hot air balloon had arrived and mankind was forever committed to the sky.
“Walker sweeps you away to a time and place you’ll NEVER want to leave!” ~ NY Times Bestselling author Danelle Harmon
England and France 1784
Cast out by his noble father for marrying the woman he loved, Jean Donet took to the sea, becoming a smuggler, delivering French brandy and tea to the south coast of England. When his young wife died, he nearly lost his sanity. In time, he became a pirate and then a privateer, vowing to never again risk his heart.
As Donet’s wealth grew, so grew his fame as a daring ship’s captain, the terror of the English Channel in the American War. When his father and older brother die in a carriage accident in France, Jean becomes the comte de Saintonge, a title he never wanted.
Lady Joanna West cares little for London Society, which considers her its darling. Marriage in the ton is either dull or disastrous. She wants no part of it. To help the poor in Sussex, she joins in their smuggling. Now she is the master of the beach, risking her reputation and her life. One night off the coast of Bognor, Joanna encounters the menacing captain of a smuggling ship, never realizing he is the mysterious comte de Saintonge.
Can Donet resist the English vixen who entices him as no other woman? Will Lady Joanna risk all for an uncertain chance at love in the arms of the dashing Jean Donet?
Once again we are thrilled to welcome our guest, the lovely Regan Walker, author of a Christmas story, ‘ The Holly & The Thistle‘ (full details of how to purchase her book are given below).
Today Regan has looked at faith in Georgian England; we hope you enjoy it and find it informative, we certainly have.
Beneath the form and ritual of religious life in Georgian England, one is tempted to ask, where were the hearts and minds of the people? I took on this task and found it daunting. It seemed the only evidence I could provide of what was in their hearts was to look at the actions that resulted from their faith (or the lack of it). I approach this issue hoping to shed light on what was happening to the church in England at the time that influenced the people, both rich and poor, in matters of faith.
The 18th Century
The early 18th century was an age of reason. The churches in England, such as they were, lacked vitality, perhaps in part due to the action of the government. I speak in general terms, of course, as there have always been exceptions. But from what I’ve read, there was little enthusiasm for spiritual matters, perhaps as a reaction to the excesses of the 17th century. People were content with things as they were, and those few who attended church did so out of habit and social custom. The aristocracy was expected to provide a good example by attending church and some did, but perhaps only a few times a year on major church holidays. There were parishes where the poor had no church at all and wanted for spiritual leadership.
In the middle of the century, a change swept England. It began with a few who desired to grow closer to God. In 1729, a small group of men at Oxford began gathering under the direction of a man named John Wesley to observe the fasts and festivals of the church, take Communion, and visit the sick and prisoners. Wesley had made his love of God the central focus of his life. His efforts, and those of others, led to what became known as The Great Awakening, a movement that also swept Europe and the American colonies. It was to have great consequence.
The “Awakening” produced powerful preachers who encouraged a personal faith in God and a need for salvation. Pulling away from the ritual and ceremony that brought people to church out of habit, the “Awakening” made Christianity intensely personal by fostering a deep sense of spiritual conviction and redemption, and by encouraging introspection and a commitment to a new standard of personal morality.
(c) John Wesleys House & The Museum of Methodism; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
John Wesley, his brother, Charles, and George Whitefield—all ordained in the Anglican Church of England—had been missionaries in America. In 1738, they returned home disillusioned and discouraged. They began attending prayer meetings on Aldersgate Street in London, searching for answers. And they found them. During that time, all three had conversion experiences.
As John Wesley wrote,
“I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins.” (Journal of John Wesley, May 24, 1738.)
A year later, John Wesley and George Whitefield began preaching the gospel outdoors to large gatherings. Wesley considered the whole of England his parish, preaching to as many as 20,000 at one time in London. Thousands who had previously thought little of religion were converted. Although not his intention, Wesley’s message led to a new movement that would ultimately separate from the Church of England, called the Methodists.
From the very start, the Methodists were concerned with personal holiness and emphasized the need for salvation and forgiveness of sin. Those who criticized them, such as the Duchess of Buckingham, complained of being held accountable for sin “as the common wretches”. Wesley’s mission was to England’s poor, the unlearned and the neglected. He had little time for the aristocratic rich, finding them idle, trivial, extravagant and lacking in social responsibility.
One of the converts at this time, however, was the Countess of Huntingdon, who for the next forty years was deeply involved with the leaders of the Methodist movement. The countess was born into aristocracy as Selina Shirley, both sides of her family being descended from royalty. Selina married Theophilus Hastings, the Earl of Huntingdon, in 1728. The countess found the social life of the aristocracy empty. After she converted to the Christian faith in 1739, she was determined to use her energies and wealth for the cause of the gospel. Within a short time she was identifying herself with the Wesley brothers and other Methodist preachers in the Church of England. This reflected great courage on her part because these itinerant preachers were despised by most of the aristocracy.
Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntington (c) National Portrait Gallery, London; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
To reach her friends, the countess brought the leading preachers of the day into her home. A number of noble and influential people came to faith in this way. All of them were most likely members of the Church of England. When her husband died in 1746, the countess threw herself into her work with even greater zeal. By the time of her death, she had built sixty-four chapels, or “preaching places”, including one in Bath.
It is interesting to note that in 1748, John Newton, the slave ship captain and later author of the hymn Amazing Grace, was converted to Christianity during a storm at sea. Afterward, he became an enthusiastic disciple of George Whitefield and then an Evangelical lay preacher. In 1757, he applied to be an ordained priest in the Church of England, though it took seven years for that to happen, owing to his lack of credentials. Meanwhile, in his frustration, he also applied to the Methodists, Presbyterians and Independents, which suggests he could have found a spiritual home with any of them. Newton’s new found faith in God made a distinct difference in his life and the hymn for which he is famous testifies to this change (“I once was lost but now am found, was blind, but now I see”).
The Clapham Group:
At the end of the 18th century, a group of wealthy Evangelicals came together, most of them living in the village of Clapham southwest of London. They were members of the Anglican Church but also Evangelicals. Their aim was to end slavery and cruel sports and to support prison reform and foreign missions.
The Clapham Group had some illustrious members including William Wilberforce, friend of both John Newton and Prime Minister William Pitt, and the statesman who successfully ended the slave trade; Charles Simeon, rector at Cambridge; Granville Sharp, a lawyer and founder of the St. George’s Bay Company, a forerunner of the Sierra Leone Company; Zachary Macaulay, estate manager and Governor of Sierra Leone (a homeland for emancipated slaves); John Shore, Lord Teignmouth, formerly Governor-General of India; James Stephen, lawyer, Wilberforce’s brother-in-law and author of the Slave Trade Act of 1807; Charles Grant, Chairman of the East India Company; and Hannah More, poet and playwright, who produced tracts for the group.
What motivated them? William Wilberforce’s views here are helpful. In his book, “A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle Classes in This Country Contrasted with Real Christianity,” published in 1798, he speaks of a “true Christian” as one discharging a debt of gratitude to God for the grace he has received. Likely his views mirrored those of his fellow Clapham Group members when he said,
They are not their own: their bodily and mental faculties, their natural and acquired endowments, their substance, their authority, their time, their influence, all these they consider. . . to be consecrated to the honor of God and employed in His service.
The Clapham Group certainly put their faith into action. One of their primary concerns was foreign missions, taking seriously Christ’s command to “go and make disciples of all nations.” Among their achievements were the following: the Religious Tract Society founded in 1799; the Society for Missions to Africa and the East (now the Church Missionary Society) founded in 1799; and the British and Foreign Bible Society, founded in 1804. The latter circulated Bibles in England and abroad (likely the King James version). With funding from the Clapham Group, Hannah More established twelve schools by 1800 where reading, the Bible and the catechism were taught to local children.
The Regency:
Against this background, we emerge into Regency England (1811-1820). During this period, the religious landscape consisted of the Anglican Church, which occupied the predominant ground, and those considered “Dissenters,” a general term that included non-conformist Protestants, Presbyterians (identified with the Scots), Baptists, Jews, Roman Catholics and Quakers.
The Protestants moved toward the Methodist and Evangelical belief in a personal God and the need for salvation. The Roman Catholics, governed by the Pope in Rome, though discriminated against, were too strong to be suppressed and persisted, eventually regaining the ability to become Members of Parliament and hold public office with The Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829. (Ironically, the Prince Regent opposed Catholic Emancipation even though Maria Fitzherbert, a twice-widowed Roman Catholic, was arguably the love of his life.)
There were many incentives to being a part of the Church of England because it was government controlled: Only Anglicans could attend Oxford or receive degrees from Cambridge. Except for the Jews and Quakers (the latter obtaining freedom of worship in 1813), all marriages and baptisms had to take place in the Anglican Church and the ceremony had to be conducted by an Anglican minister. All citizens, no matter their faith, paid taxes to maintain the parish churches, and non-Anglicans were prevented from taking many government and military posts.
According to Henry Wakeman in An Introduction to theHistory of the Church of England, by the time George III died in 1820, despite all that occurred in the 18th century, with a few exceptions, the Church of England was not materially different than it was when George III came to the throne in 1760.
The bishops were still amiable scholars who lived in dignified ease apart from their clergy, attended the king’s levee regularly, voted steadily in Parliament for the party of the minister who had appointed them, entertained the country gentry when Parliament was not sitting, wrote learned books on points of classical scholarship, and occasionally were seen driving in state through the muddy country roads on their way to the chief towns of their dioceses to hold a confirmation. Of spiritual leadership they had but little idea. (Wakeman at 457)
Jane Austen:
Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery
Jane Austen wrote about the world of the Anglican clergy, which she knew well, her father being the Reverend George Austen, a pastor who encouraged his daughter in her love of reading and writing. (In addition to her novels, Jane Austen composed evening prayers for her father’s services.) Two of her brothers were members of the Anglican clergy.
It was a culture in which faith often influenced one’s livelihood. Some of Austen’s characters (i.e., Edward Ferrars and Edmund Bertram) were clergy in need of parsonages. It was an acceptable occupation for a younger son. Large landowners and peers owned many of the church appointments and could appoint them.
Of the Anglican clergy, Wakeman said (at 459, 461),
The bulk of the English clergy then as ever were educated, refined, generous, God-fearing men, who lived lives of simple piety and plain duty, respected by their people for the friendly help and wise counsel and open purse which were ever at the disposal of the poor.
A few of them hunted, shot, fished and drank or gambled during the week like their friends in the army or at the bar, and mumbled through a perfunctory service in church on Sundays unterrified by the thought of archdeacon or bishop. Some of them, where there was no residence in the parish, lived an idle and often vicious life at a neighbouring town, and only visited their parishes when they rode over on Sundays to conduct the necessary services.
[With few exceptions] the clergy held and taught a negative and cold Protestantism deadening to the imagination, studiously repressive to the emotions, and based on principles which found little sanction either in reason or in history. The laity willingly accepted it, as it made so little demand upon their conscience, so little claim upon their life.
Wakeman also recognized the indifference of the Church of England to the “tearing away” of the followers of Whitefield and Wesley:
An earnest revival of personal religion had deeply affected some sections of English society. Yet…the Church of England reared her impassive front…sublime in her apathy, unchanged and apparently unchangeable….
Unlike some Anglicans, who may have attended church merely out of duty or habit, Jane Austen was more than a nominal church member. From the prayers she wrote, she seems to have been a devout believer who accepted the Anglican faith as it was, though she disliked hypocrisy and that may be reflected in some of her clergyman characters.
Austen also had views on the Evangelicals. In a letter to her sister Cassandra, written on January 24, 1809, she admitted, “I do not like the Evangelicals.” Like many Anglicans, she likely felt faith was to be unemotional and demonstrated in observances of certain services, prayers and moral teachings. The demonstrative preaching and strong message of the Evangelicals, particularly their enthusiasm and fervor, might not appeal to a girl raised in an Anglican minister’s home. Then, too, she had experience with certain Evangelicals, notably her cousin Edward Cooper, who she said in a letter to her sister, wrote “cruel letters of comfort”.
However, as Austen grew older, there is some indication of a softening in her thinking. On November 18, 1814, in a letter to her niece, Fanny Knight, Austen wrote,
“I am by no means convinced that we ought not all to be Evangelicals, & am at least persuaded that they who are so from Reason & Feeling, must be happiest & safest.”
Perhaps as Austen viewed the decadence of the Regency period (particularly the social life in London), the indulgences of the monarch, George the Prince Regent, and the lackluster faith of some who adhered to the Church of England only out of habit, she found value in the sincerity of those who espoused a more evangelical message. It was, after all, the Evangelicals led by William Wilberforce, allied with the Quakers, who became the champions of the anti-slavery movement, resulting in the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1807. Among Jane Austen’s favorite writers were those who were passionately anti-slavery, such as William Cowper, Doctor Johnson and Thomas Clarkson.
Austen was critical of the Prince Regent, too, and understandably so. Unlike his parents, George III and Queen Charlotte, the Prince Regent lived a decadent life, indulging in his personal pleasure and devoid of any evidence of a personal faith, though he was nominally the head of the Church of England. As a result of the tax burden from the wars in France and the Prince’s opulent lifestyle that was crushing the poor and working classes, the resentment for the Prince grew more strident as time went on. Jane Austen disliked him intensely, principally because of his treatment of his wife, Princess Caroline of Brunswick (as seen in Jane’s letter to Martha Lloyd of February 16, 1813).
Lasting Change
However, in at least some parts of the Church of England during the Regency era, spiritual change was afoot. In such instances, the Church of England looked more like the Protestant Evangelicals. For example, Charles Simeon, rector of Trinity Church, Cambridge from 1782 to 1836, and a member of the Clapham group, was a great Bible expositor, who taught a risen Savior and salvation through grace, sounding very much like Wesley and Whitefield decades earlier. That was no mean feat given the opposition he faced at Cambridge. The universities were bastions of the established Church of England and seedbeds of rationalism, neither of which made them sympathetic to a rector of strong religious faith.
Charles Simeon, former Dean, engraved by William Say after a drawing by John Jackson, 1822 (KCAC/1/4/Simeon/1). King’s College, Cambridge.
Because of their stance on moral issues, the Evangelicals of the day were viewed by some as troublemakers who didn’t want anyone to have any fun. Notwithstanding such views, there were those in the aristocracy, including William Cavendish, the 6th Duke of Devonshire, who became Evangelicals though they never left the Anglican Church. And such faith produced change. Upon his conversion, the Duke gave up his long time mistress.
Scientific Discovery and the Industrial Revolution:
Other factors influenced people’s view of God, particularly in the 19th century. New ideas in politics, philosophy, science and art all vied for people’s attention. Two in particular, the scientific discoveries of the time and the Industrial Revolution, may have had dramatic effect on the people’s faith.
In 1781, while investigating what he and others believed to be a comet, William Herschel, an astronomer, discovered a new planet he named “George’s star,” after King George III. (In 1850, after Herschel’s death, the name would be changed to Uranus.) This was the first planet discovered since ancient times. Herschel, a devout Christian, strongly believed that God’s universe was characterized by order and planning. His discovery of that order led him to conclude, “The undevout astronomer must be mad.”
Herschel’s discoveries caused his fellow scientists and theologians to reconsider their prior views of God and the possibility there were other creations in the universe. Not all views expressed were those of believers; however, one who is illustrative of the prevailing attitude was Thomas Dick, a Scottish minister and science teacher. In his book The Sidereal Heavens, published in 1840, he said of Herschel’s discovery,
To consider creation, therefore, in all its departments, as extending throughout regions of space illimitable to mortal view, and filled with intelligent existence, is nothing more than what comports with the idea of HIM who inhabiteth immensity, and whose perfections are boundless and past finding out.
Dick’s statement is indicative of the view during the early 19th-century when science was dominated by clergymen, men dedicated to their scientific work but still committed to their faith in God. Scientific discoveries were seen as entirely consistent with a belief in a Creator.
The other factor is the Industrial Revolution, which transformed English society and would certainly cause people to question the established order of things, including the church.
During the 18th century, England’s population nearly doubled. The industry most important in the rise of England as an industrial nation was cotton textiles. A series of inventions led to machines that replaced human laborers. The effect of machines replacing workers, particularly in the textile industry, was keenly felt in some parts of England. The lives of the working class were disrupted and many people relocated from the countryside to the towns.
In 1801, at the time of the first census, only about 20% of the population lived in towns. By 1851, the figure had risen to over 50%. New social relationships emerged with the growing working and middle classes. During this time of upheaval and relocation, though some individuals, like Charles Simeon, exercised great spiritual influence, the church as a whole failed to grapple with the problems that resulted from the huge surge in population and the growth of industrial towns. Still, perhaps the problems that led people to move to the larger cities resulted in their hearing the message of the great preachers of the day. Having heard, they might have been spurred to examine their faith.
One can only hope.
A chance meeting at Berry’s wine shop, a misunderstanding and Christmastide all come together to allow the most handsome Scot in London to give Lady Emily Picton the best Christmas gift ever: a marriage not of convenience, but of love.
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Once again we are absolutely delighted to welcome a return guest to our blog, the lovely Regan Walker, who has written another fascinating article for us. This time she has looked at a subject which is very close to our hearts – food!
“A sea adventure like no other, a riveting romance!” – Shirlee Busbee, NY Times Bestselling Author
For more information and snippets from Regan’s book please see the links at the bottom of the page.
Luis Meléndez (1716–1780), Still Life with Apples, Grapes, Melons, Bread, Jug and Bottle
While doing research for my story, To Tame the Wind, the prequel to my Agents of the Crown trilogy, I was reminded how well the Georgians ate, even in the 18th century, particularly if they were people of means and had access to a large country garden.
Beginning in the late 1600s, many in the English aristocracy sent their cooks to France to learn to cook, but apparently the experiment was of mixed success (though I daresay England’s kitchens benefitted from the French Revolution when many refugees fled North). Eliza Smith, one of the early female cookbook writers, was not complimentary of French cooking, but Hannah Glasse, whose The Art of Cooking Made Plain and Easy was possibly the most successful cookbook of the 18th century, must have felt differently as she included French recipes.
Glasse’s Art of Cookery with 1748 signature
By 1758, modern cooking techniques began to emerge with Sarah Phillips’ The Ladies Handmaid wherein she instructs cooks to use the minimum liquid and minimum cooking times for vegetables, sounding very modern. Artichokes and French beans were popular, as were cucumbers.
If one had land to cultivate a garden, the French company Vilmorin-Andrieux & Cie, Paris merchants, would assist with the first catalog of seeds for kitchen garden vegetables, including legumes, salad plants, flower seeds and bulbs published in 1766.
Vilmorin-Andrieux & Cie catalog page
Many estate owners maintained extensive gardens and orchards. In the second half of the 18th century, they used canals to transport produce where such were available. Late in the century, the roads improved and transport was made easier. Thus London’s markets benefitted from produce grown elsewhere.
As for bread, a staple of life then as now, the population seemed to prefer white bread to dark bread. Farmers grew more wheat to meet the demand for white wheaten bread. When bad weather hit in the second half of the century, grain was either imported or bread was supplemented with other cereals, not popular with the people. In 1767, Arthur Young commented, “rye and barley bread are looked upon with horror even by the poor cottagers.”
Still life with Bread by Ceruti 1750
For breakfast, the gentry ate enriched, fruited spice breads or cakes and lightly spiced buns flavored with caraway seeds served hot and buttered. Muffins were also popular in the North from the 1770s. If one was of a mind to spread something on the bread, there was butter, honey, marmalade and jams made from various fruits, such as raspberries, cherries and apples.
Breakfast might include kippers. I’ve had them and, personally, once was enough. Kippers are usually herring or a young salmon split, cleaned, boned, dried, and rubbed with salt and pepper, then fried or baked and served hot at the breakfast table. The kippers I had were baked herring. After one bite, I asked the waiter to take the fish away. My traveling companion thanked me.
Boiled oatmeal with butter, called “gruel” could be served at breakfast with cream as it is today, but it was also served in the evening.
Chocolate was a hot drink thought to make women fertile. How clever. No wonder we love the solid stuff today!
As for other meals, there was soup, stews and meat if you could afford it.
Servant serving soup
White soup contained veal stock, cream and almonds. Sometimes it was thickened with rice or breadcrumbs. On the streets of London, vendors hawked both pease pudding and pea soup.
Lobscouse, a stew of meats and vegetables was familiar to seamen and could be quite varied. (Stew was a frequent dish on the Fairwinds, my hero’s ship in To Tame the Wind).
What did they eat for the main course at dinner? Well, if one could afford it, mutton and beef to be sure. During the first half of the century, thousands of cattle found their way to Smithfield Market in London each year. The meat was not always of good quality, however. The Duke of Bedford had sheep and cattle driven up from his estate at Woburn and parked in the fields outside his London house so he did not have to shop at Smithfield. They had to be guarded against thieves, however.
Many different types of meat were consumed, sometimes at the same meal, among them beef sirloin, venison, mutton, ham, bacon, hare (rabbit), chicken, geese, turkey, pigeons, ducks and partridge. An Irish gentleman travelling in England in 1752 had a “very good supper”, consisting of “veal cutlets, pigeons, asparagus, lamb and salad, apple-pie and tarts.” An Irish Gentleman, Journey through England, 1752.
Fish would have been consumed, as well, depending on where you lived. Salmon and tuna were among those recorded as well as shellfish, such as oysters. (Lobster was cheap because they were so numerous.)
Lobster still life
For supper, the fare might be cold meats and a hunk of Cheddar cheese. There were many types of cheese available, too.
The English loved their puddings, both then and now, both savory and sweet. Even officers on ships liked them. And syllabub, a drink containing cider or wine sweetened with nutmeg, milk and cream, was enjoyed.
Fruit was surprisingly varied. Open-air markets might sell fruit as they do today, but other shops featured fruit as well. Sophie de la Roche, a German visitor to London in 1786, wrote about her stroll down Oxford Street. After commenting on the many shops, she noted:
“Just as alluring are the confectioners and fruiterers, where, behind the handsome glass windows, pyramids of pineapples, figs, grapes, oranges and all manner of fruits are on show.”
Johannes Zoffany, Fruit Stalls
When it was warm, ices were much desired. Although they had been known in England since the late 17th century, ices were made popular by French and Italian confectioners setting up shops in London in the mid 18th century. Some varieties that are fashionable in modern times, such as brown bread and pistachio, date from this period. There were also ices made with elderflowers, jasmine, white coffee, tea, pineapple, barberries and a host of other unusual flavors. Yum!
Georgian Ices
In 1757, an Italian pastry cook named Domenico Negri opened a shop on Berkeley Square under the sign of “The Pot and Pineapple”. The pineapple was a symbol of luxury and used extensively as a logo for confectioners. Negri’s impressive trade card not only featured a pineapple, but it advertised that he was in the business of making English, French and Italian wet and dry sweetmeats. In To Tame the Wind the heroine and her friend, Lady Danvers, make a special stop at Negri’s to procure some sweetmeats.
Negri’s PineApple Ice Cream shop
What to drink? Well, tea was the national drink, but expensive. Coffee houses flourished and no wonder. Men thought it improved their sexual prowess. Wine might accompany a wealthy man’s dinner. A good wine cellar might include Champagne, Claret (Bordeaux), Sherry, Port and Madeira. Punches were popular, too, cold or warmed and often spiced. (This may have been one of the uses for the stores of nutmegs, ginger, cloves and cinnamon.) The populace drank ale. And we can’t forget wassail at Christmastide.
Altogether it was a rich fare!
Paris 1782…AN INNOCENT IS TAKEN
All Claire Donet knew was the world inside the convent walls in Saint-Denis. She had no idea her beloved papa was a pirate. But when he seized Simon Powell’s schooner, the English privateer decided to take the one thing his enemy held most dear… her.
A BATTLE IS JOINED
The waters between France and England roil with the clashes of Claire’s father and her captor as the last year of the American Revolution rages on the sea, spies lurk in Paris and Claire’s passion for the English captain rises.
Links to purchase Regan’s book can be found by clicking on the links below
We are absolutely thrilled to welcome a new guest to our blog – Regan Walker, bestselling author of historical romance. Regan has another new book due out on the 9th May 2015 – To Tame the Wind. Regan is sharing with us some of her research that has helped her in writing her latest book, which is available from Amazon.
In To Tame the Wind, my new Georgian romance, the hero, an English privateer, adroitly maneuvers his schooner through the traffic on the Thames to moor in the Pool of London. That’s the area just downstream from London Bridge where London’s port was originally centered. And it was a very busy place!
During the 18th century, both the city of London and its international trade went through a great expansion. The Thames became a huge traffic jam, or as one of my characters described it, ““There are so many ships in port just now, the Thames is like a kettle of stew on the boil.”
Pool of London, painting by John Wilson Carmichael
Thousands of coastal sailing ships entered the port each year bringing coal or grain to the capital. These ships competed for space in the crowded river with vessels carrying goods like sugar and rum from the West Indies, tea and spices from the East Indies, wine from the Mediterranean, furs, timber and hemp for rope from Russia and the Baltic and tobacco from America.
As you might expect, the rate of increase in the volume of the trade fluctuated with the alternating periods of peace and war. Between 1700 and 1770 the commerce of the port nearly doubled, and from 1770 to 1795 (only 25 years) it doubled again. In 1751, the Pool of London handled 1,682 ships in overseas trade. By 1794, this had risen to 3,663 ships. By 1792, London’s share of imports and exports accounted for 65% of the total for all of England.
The heavy congestion in the Pool resulted in damage to goods and ships, theft and delays. Merchants complained loudly about the effect this had on their costs and profits, and in the 1790’s the merchants of the highly profitable West Indies trade began to campaign for better port facilities, which they eventually got.
Shipping on the Thames, painting by Samuel Scott
Some idea of the state of congestion that existed in the river can be gathered from the fact that in the Upper Pool, 1,775 vessels were allowed to moor simultaneously in a space adapted for about 545. A ship of 500 tons was thought of as a ship of exceptional size and this partly explains the state of congestion. The great increase in the volume of trade resulted in the addition of a large number of ships of relatively small carrying capacity. The situation was aggravated by the large number of these smaller craft, estimated at about 3,500, employed to convey cargoes from the moorings to the wharves.
Ships did their best to sail up or down the Thames, but being unloaded was another matter. Until the end of the eighteenth century, there were no docks built for unloading ships (as opposed to dockyards that repaired them). Instead, cargo that couldn’t be carried from a ship to the wharf would be ferried by smaller craft.
The Port of London was the busiest port in the world.
Paris 1782…AN INNOCENT IS TAKEN
All Claire Donet knew was the world inside the convent walls in Saint-Denis. She had no idea her beloved papa was a pirate. But when he seized Simon Powell’s schooner, the English privateer decided to take the one thing his enemy held most dear… her.
A BATTLE IS JOINED
The waters between France and England roil with the clashes of Claire’s father and her captor as the last year of the American Revolution rages on the sea, spies lurk in Paris and Claire’s passion for the English captain rises.
The Romans are credited with the first greenhouses to grow fruits and vegetables, but the Italians are given credit for the orangery during the Renaissance when glassmaking techniques enabled sufficiently large expanses of clear glass to be produced. Though some in Scotland imported citrus trees from Spain, at least one of my sources said it was from Italy the Scots imported small budded orange trees.
All Things Georgian 