Who would think that at the beginning of the 18th Century that either America or Great Britain would take the lead in industrializing the world? Yet, during the 1700s and 1800s, it was those two nations which sprang forward to claim the roles of leaders. Some authorities believe that Britain was able to achieve what most Europe could not because the feudal system was more entrenched on the Continent than it was in Britain. Others hold with the idea that the geographical locations of the England and the United States created natural lines of transportation. Needless to say, neither the U.S. or Britain was marked by the devastation of war that we found upon the Continent. More believe the two countries had a jump start on France and other European countries with the smelting of iron ore in America and Britain’s coal metallurgy. Perhaps it is a bit of each reason listed above.
Pix For > Spinning Mule Industrial Revolution pixgood.com
In Great Britain, there is the idea that the mechanization of textile manufacturing created an atmosphere conducive to general industrialization. Yet, history shows us that many other countries mechanized textile manufacturing and then went nowhere fast. The spinning jenny (patented by James Hargreaves in 1770) was a machine for spinning more than one spindle at a time an well used in both America and Britain. While Britain used steam power, in the United States, the mills were located closer to rivers to take advantage of much cheaper water power.
Yet, it was the prevailing idea in both Britain and the northern coastal states of the U.S. that there was strong traditions shared by both countries and a customary acceptance of innovation in craftsmanship that likely fueled the progress of both countries. “In addition, the necessities of the developing colonies and states enforced a continued emphasis on utilitarian ways of ‘organizing and interpreting…experience,’ one generation after another.” [Thomas C. Cochran, Frontiers of Change, Oxford University Press, 1981]
File:TM158 Strong Calico Loom with Planed Framing and Catlow’s Patent Dobby.png – Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org
have been crucial. The technological innovations that started the upsurge of industrialization, that is, were congenial to the existing culture and not, as in the case of less-developed nations, exotic imports. While the later Japanese experience might argue that ‘high technology’ industries can be introduced by experienced artisans who have studied foreign machinery, this observation merely adds the corollary that, even if rapidly enlarged, a traditional, indigenous metalworking industry, like Japan’s, was essential to bringing in the age of iron and steel. Since later industrial machines continued to be made of metal, history assures us by hindsight that the metalworking industry was the essential of advanced technology in 1800. The particular needs of future development in an age of chemistry and electronics may not be so clear. Furthermore, the early industrial nations progressed chiefly in response to consumer demands, not by government acquisition of exotic equipment belonging to more developed societies.” [Cochran, page 8]
For most of Western history, marriage was a private contract between two families. Until the 16th-century, Christian churches accepted the validity of a marriage on the basis of a couple’s declarations. If two people claimed that they had exchanged marital vows—even without witnesses—the Catholic Church accepted that they were validly married. During the Regency, couples who chose to marry could be joined by several means. Many chose to purchase what was known as an ordinary, common or standard license. Others chose to have what was known as a calling of the banns.
Sharon Lathan tells us, “A wedding could take place on any day of the week. All weddings took place in the parish chapel where at least one of the two persons lived. Per Hardwicke’s Marriage Act of 1753, weddings occurred during canonical hours of eight AM to noon.
“Since most members of the ton could claim London as their residence, and lived in the fashionable districts such as Mayfair, Grosvenor, and St. James, many Regency weddings took place at Saint George’s Church in Hanover Square. From 1725 when St. George’s was established, thousands of weddings were conducted there. In 1816 alone there were 1063 weddings!”
A requirement for banns of marriage was introduced to England and Wales by the Church in 1215. The banns were a public announcement in the parish church of an upcoming marriage. The banns permitted anyone who objected to the marriage to raise a canonical or civil legal impediment. Such impediments could include a preexisting marriage that was not annulled or dissolved, a vow of celibacy, lack of consent, or the couple’s being related within the prohibited degrees of kinship.
The banns would be read for three consecutive Sundays and posted in a public place, customarily outside the church door, before the ceremony could take place. The couple would have three months to claim marriage. If they did not marry within that time, another round of banns would be required.
Marriage licenses were introduced in the 14th century, to permit the usual notice period under banns to be waived, on payment of a fee and accompanied by a sworn declaration, that there was no canonical impediments to the marriage existed. Originally, licenses were only granted by an archbishop, bishop, or archdeacon.
The standard or common license did not require a calling of the banns, but the stipulation of marrying within three months still needed to occur. The banns or the license had to come before the service. Everyone who was not a Jew marrying a Jew or a Quaker marrying a Quaker were required to be married in the local parish church of the Church of England. Roman Catholics were supposed to be married first by an Anglican priest before marrying in the Catholic church, but in practice many married in Catholic rites first. However, the marriage was not valid until and unless they married according to the law by a clergyman of the Church of England. All marriages had to be registered in the parish register even if the couple married in a private house by special license. If no one protested the marriage when the banns were read, or at the ceremony when it is asked if any one knows why the two people should not be married, then the marriage could proceed.
“There were two kinds of marriage licences that could be issued: the usual was known as a common licence and named one or two parishes where the wedding could take place, within the jurisdiction of the person who issued the license. The clergyman who administered the ceremony had to be associated with the Church of England. He would issue the licence as a cost of a few shillings to a pound, depending upon the wealth of those applying. The license was valid for 15 days. The couple had the option of marrying in either the parish of the bride or that of the groom. They must be a resident of the parish in which they were to marry. (Do you recall Wickham had to wait to marry to Lydia Bennet until he could establish residency. “We were married, you know, at St. Clement’s, because Wickham’s lodgings were in that parish. And it was settled that we should all be there by eleven o’clock.”) Both the groom and the bride had to make sworn statements that no impediments existed that would cancel their marriage vows.
The other was the special licence, which could ONLY be granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury or his officials and allowed the marriage to take place in any church or even at home. A special licence was more expensive than the common licence: over 20 guineas plus a £4 to £5 Stamp Duty for the paper. As mentioned above, the couple could be married at any time of the day and anywhere they wanted. All the other requirements were the same.
“To obtain a marriage licence, the couple, or more usually the bridegroom, had to swear that there was no just cause or impediment why they should not marry. This was the marriage allegation. A bond was also lodged with the church authorities for a sum of money to be paid if it turned out that the marriage was contrary to Canon Law. The bishop kept the allegation and bond and issued the licence to the groom, who then gave it to the vicar of the church where they were to get married. There was no obligation for the vicar to keep the licence and many were simply destroyed. Hence, few historical examples of marriage licences, in England and Wales, survive. However, the allegations and bonds were usually retained and are an important source for English genealogy.” (Marriage License)
The poor often married without benefit of clergy or ceremony–they just called themselves married and that was that (made divorce a lot easier and possible, too). Needless to say, the Church of England heartily disapproved. The old custom–marriage by cohabitation had been legal before the Hardwick Act of 1753, and there was the even older custom of handfasting–often held with the very poor, particularly since marriage was more about a legal agreement as to the disposition of property and inheritance from a legal alliance. Handfasting is a historical term for “betrothal” or “wedding.” Handfasting is a history term for “betrothal” or “wedding.” ” In Scottish history of the 16th and 17th centuries, especially in the Hebrides, the term could also refer to a temporary marriage. The verb to handfast in the sense of “to formally promise, to make a contract” is recorded for Late Old English, especially in the context of a contract of marriage. The derived handfasting is for a ceremony of engagement or betrothal is recorded in Early Modern English. [ “handfasting, n.” and “handfast, v.” OED Online. November 2010. Oxford University Press. “Old Norse hand-festa to strike a bargain by joining hands, to pledge, betroth” The earliest cited English use in connection with marital status is from a manuscript of c. 1200, when Mary is described as “handfast (to) a good man called Joseph“. “?c1200 Ormulum (Burchfield transcript) l. 2389 “Ȝho wass hanndfesst an god mann Þatt iosæp wass ȝehatenn.”]
The practice was supposedly common in 16th and 17th centuries Scotland.
And there is always the distinction between the respectable poor, for whom a proper legal marriage was very important, and the less respectable poor, who would either ignore the law or be ignorant of it. Marriage was never only about property. It was also about morality and respectability, which mattered to the middle class and the respectable poor far more than it did to some of the aristocracy.
In Regency England, one was supposed to use one’s correct name for banns and the license to marry. The interpretation of correct name varied in that one marriage was annulled because, among other things, the banns were called in a boy’s baptismal name, though he was always called by his middle name. When banns were called, clarity and identity were most important. Everyone, especially parents and guardians had to be made aware of the names of those marrying.
First, let us take a quick look at “height,” in general.
In the early phase of anthropometric research history, questions about height measuring techniques for measuring nutritional status often concerned genetic differences.[“Stadiometers and Height Measurement Devices”. stadiometer.com.]
Height is also important because it is closely correlated with other health components, such as life expectancy. Studies show that there is a correlation between small stature and a longer life expectancy. Individuals of small stature are also more likely to have lower blood pressure and are less likely to acquire cancer. The University of Hawaii has found that the “longevity gene” FOXO3 that reduces the effects of aging is more commonly found in individuals of small body size. Short stature decreases the risk of venous insufficiency.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, people of European descent in North America were far taller than those in Europe and were one of the tallest in the world. The original indigenous population of Plains Native Americans was also among the tallest populations of the world at the time. Some studies also suggest that there existed the correlation between the height and the real wage, moreover, the correlation was higher among the less developed countries. The difference in height between children from different social classes was already observed by the age of two.
The average height of Americans and Europeans decreased during periods of rapid industrialization, possibly due to rapid population growth and broad decreases in economic status. This has become known as the early-industrial growth puzzle (in the U.S. context the Antebellum Puzzle). In England during the early nineteenth century, the difference between the average height of English upper-class youth (students of Sandhurst Military Academy) and English working-class youth (Marine Society boys) reached 22 cm (8.7 in), the highest that has been observed.
In general, there were no significant differences in regional height levels throughout the nineteenth century. The only exceptions of this rather uniform height distribution were people in the Anglo-Saxon settlement regions who were taller than the average and people from Southeast Asia with below-average heights. However, at the end of the nineteenth century and in the middle of the first globalization period, heights between rich and poor countries began to diverge.These differences did not disappear in the deglobalization period of the two World wars. In 2014, Baten and Blum found that in the nineteenth century, important determinants of height were the local availability of cattle, meat and milk as well as the local disease environment.In the late twentieth century, however, technologies and trade became more important, decreasing the impact of local availability of agricultural products.
Resources for the Above Information Summarized from Other Sources:
Stock, Jay (Summer 2006). “Skeleton key” (PDF). Planet Earth: 26.
Komlos, J.; Baur, M. (2004). “From the tallest to (one of) the fattest: The enigmatic fate of the American population in the 20th century”. Economics & Human Biology. 2 (1): 57–74.
Baten, Jörg (June 2000). “Heights and Real Wages in the 18th and 19th Centuries: An International Overview”. Economic History Yearbook. 41 (1). doi:10.1524/jbwg.2000.41.1.61
Komlos, John (1998). “Shrinking in a growing economy? The mystery of physical stature during the industrial revolution”. Journal of Economic History. 58 (3): 779–802. doi:10.1017/S0022050700021161
Komlos, J. (2007). On English Pygmies and Giants: The physical stature of English youth in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Research in Economic History. Vol. 25. pp. 149–168. CiteSeerX10.1.1.539.620. doi:10.1016/S0363-3268(07)25003-7.
Baten, Joerg; Blum, Matthias (2012). “Growing tall but unequal: new findings and new background evidence on anthropometric welfare in 156 countries, 1810-1989”. Economic History of Developing Regions. 27: 566–585. doi:10.1080/20780389.2012.657489.
Baten, Joerg (2006). “Global Height Trends in Industrial and Developing Countries, 1810-1984: An Overview”. Recuperado el. 20.
So, how tall was Mr. Darcy? Most authors write him as around six feet in height, with Elizabeth Bennet being a bit on the short side. Perhaps, such has to do with the 1995 PBS series staring Colin Firth (6’2″) and Jennifer Ehle (5’7″), as well as the 2005 film with Matthew Macfadyen (6’3″) and Keira Knightley (also 5’7″).
“When we think of Jane Austen’s Mr Darcy we tend to think of Colin Firth emerging from a lake with a wet white shirt.
“And yet new academic research, commissioned by the television channel Drama ahead of its Austen season, shows that this image of Darcy is likely to be very different from the reality. Unlike the muscular, square-jawed actors who have played him, the character would have been pale with a long face, pointy chin and small mouth.
“The study, led by John Sutherland (Lord Northcliffe professor emeritus of modern English literature at University College London) and Amanda Vickery (professor of early modern history at Queen Mary University of London), looked at Austen’s personal life and relationships to work out who might have been the inspiration for Fitzwilliam Darcy. They then explored the socioeconomic and cultural factors that would have influenced his appearance.
“When Pride and Prejudice was written in the 1790s, square jaws, broad shoulders and muscles would have been associated with labourers, while dainty, refined features were the preserve of the wealthy. So Darcy would have had sloping shoulders, a narrow chest, shapely calves and thighs, pale, powdered hair and a fair complexion. In terms of facial features, he is likely to have had a long nose and a pointy chin. He also wouldn’t have been very tall – around 5’11”, rather than Firth’s 6’2″.
“Mr Darcy is an iconic literary character, renowned for his good looks, charm and mystery. As Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice in the 1790s, our Mr Darcy portrayal reflects the male physique and common features at the time,” Professor Vickery told iNews.
“Men sported powdered hair, had narrow jaws, and muscular, defined legs were considered very attractive. A stark contrast to the chiselled, dark, brooding Colin Firth portrayal we associate the character with today.”
Okay, so I have danced about this subject quite a bit. I love the idea of height, for my father was 6’1′, while my mother was only 5’1″. I was 5’8″ in the 7th grade. All my cousins were short, around 5 foot tall. My uncle was short. My son wanted to be, at least, 6′, but his dad was only 5’11”. Therefore, he is comparable. In professional photos where my husband and I sat side-by-side, they would also ask him to sit on a pillow. I was taller from the waist up than him. LOL!
So here are the facts as we know them for the Regency Period and the late Georgian era.
According to multiple sources on growth studies, the average 18th century male was 5 ft. 5 inches. The English male seems to have stayed at this for the early part of the 1800s. For some reason, in Ireland, the average was 5’6″. My sources also put Napoleon at 5’6″ or 5’7″ by modern measurement.
Like a lot of different measurements, from inches to miles and leagues, different countries had different numbers. There was no standardization. For instance, a German mile was four British miles. A Spanish League could be a third to half the distance of a British league, depending on the area of the country. French inches were longer than British inches. The British military had a height requirement of 5’6” at the start of the Napoleonic Wars. That became reduced to 5’5” and then 5’4” as the wars went on, which is also true of the France and other nations.
So… The armies would not have made 5’6” the first standard if they were going to have any trouble finding men of that height. The average American Civil War soldier was also 5’6”. As my DNA is composed heavily of Scotland, England and NW Europe, Ireland, Norway, Wales, and Germanic Europe, all I have shared above makes perfect sense. As to Mr. Darcy, well, you must decide for yourself.
Regularly, I have a number of people who ask me questions regarding points in the story he/she is writing. Heck, I have a handful of those of whom I ask my questions also. On Facebook, I belong to a group called Regency Kisses: Lady Catherine’s Salon, where questions are the normal, as well as sharing Regency stories and authors.
Keeping that in mind, here goes . . .
Investopedia tells us, “An heir is defined as an individual who is legally entitled to inherit some or all of the estate of another person who dies intestate. Dying intestate means the deceased person failed to establish a legal last will and testament during their living years. In such a scenario, the heir receives property according to the laws of the state in which the property is probated. Heirs who inherit property are typically children, descendants, or other close relatives of the decedent. Spouses typically are not legally considered to be heirs, as they are instead entitled to properties via marital or community property laws.”
Meanwhile, The Law Dictionary tells us, “At common law. A person who succeeds, by the rules of law, to an estate in lands, tenements, or hereditaments, upon the death of his ancestor, by descent and right of relationship. The term “heir” has a very different signification at common law from what it has in those states and countries which have adopted the civil law. In the latter, the term is indiscriminately applied to all persons who are called to the succession, whether by the act of the party or by operation of law. The person who is created universal successor by a will is called the “testamentary heir;” and the next of kin by blood is, in cases of intestacy, called the “heir at law,” or “heir by intestacy.” The executor of the common law in many respects corresponds to the testamentary heir of the civil law. Again, the administrator in many respects corresponds with the heir by intestacy. By the common law, executors and administrators have no right except to the personal estate of the deceased; whereas the heir by the civil law is authorized to administer both the personal and real estate.”
Bayeux Tapestry – Scene 23: Harold swearing oath on holy relics to William, Duke of Normandy. Titulus: UBI HAROLD SACRAMENTUM FECIT WILLELMO DUCI (Where Harold made an oath to Duke William) ~ Public Domain
That is the legal mumbo-jumbo. Below are points to keep in mind when writing about heirs in the Georgian era.
The first boy is usually called the heir though a more legal term might be heir apparent.
Birth notices were something similar to: “The Duchess of Devonshire a son and heir.”
I read somewhere (wish I could remember where) that the male heir could be up to the third cousin. After that it gets a bit murky. And do not even start on rights of inheritance in Wales and Scotland.
Monument at Swanscombe commemorating the legend of how Kent successfully managed to protect their rights from subjugation by the Duke of Normandy ~ Wikipedia ~ CC BY-SA 3.0
In stories we usually have the heir or newly minted peer being pressed to marry and have children. The supposition is that if they married, they would have children.
As for why some peers did not marry~another reason was venereal disease, including such situations as his parents were afflicted, and he was born sterile (many had mistresses, but did they have children by these liaisons, or they had contracted it themselves and did not want to pass it on to an unsuspecting bride. [Plot bunnies just raised their ugly heads, did they not?]
The rights of inheritance to peerage of England, Great Britain or the United Kingdom had to follow the rules of England.
Rules of inheritance to other property varied from place to place even within England. There were different rules in Kent for instance. In Kent the dominant inheritance code was ‘gavelkind’, by which all sons inherited equally. However, the predominant inheritance rule throughout the rest of England in the medieval period and afterwards was male-preference primogeniture, whereby estates passed in total to the eldest son. However, these rules of inheritance were only applied if there was no will, deed, settlement or other document disposing of property. All peerages by patent descended according to the patent. Peerages by writ were dispense by common law heirs general. If a man with much property died, the various pieces of property could all descend to different people.
If a peerage was 400 years old the hunt for an heir could go back to the younger sons of the original peer.
The peerages were supposed to go straight down the line from father to son. In reality, I would say that a peerages always going directly father to oldest son only happened slightly more than half the time.
It was not at all uncommon for peers who were in the navy to die either without children or without sons.
One would think that a peerage held by a man who had ten children with four or more boys included would be safe from extinction, but that was not always the case.
More than one peerage has descended from uncle to nephew and then to cousins.
I am also surprised at the number of peers who never married. The young man who became the Duke of Devonshire in 1811 was one of them. I have not read any real reason why he never married, though some reasons have been presented:
***One Wikipedia page says that he was devastated when his cousin Lady Caroline married another so never married himself. As he was 21 in 1811 and she married in 1805 or so, such an attraction could be called calf love for a lovely older cousin.
***Another Wikipedia page suggests that he stayed single because he liked the young cousin and his wife who was the heir. As the heir was in line to succeed to an earldom he would not actually be sending a man into poverty if he had married and fathered a son.
Other reasons given:
***He felt that he was not the son of the Duke of Devonshire so not entitled to the dukedom–though he treated it as his and used the money while he lived so that does not hold water.
***He never felt enough interest in a woman to marry her. There are letters to his mistresses which I have not seen, but that does not preclude him not having a desire to marry.
Reading the peerage or even Wikipedia pages about peers shows that the peers were generally closely related to each other and the aristocracy could be called “the cousins,” providing some stories that could rival my beloved Appalachia.
Question: Can he sit in the House of Lords in place of his sick father? Not unless he is given a writ of acceleration and sent to the House of Lords in one of his father’s baronies. In that case he will sit with the barons and use the baron’s title in the House, but still be a Marquess outside of it and for most questions of precedence.
All heirs have to prove that their pedigree and legitimacy.
When called before the House of Lords, the man has to have the pedigree going back to the ancestor from whom he descends and show all the marriages and legal births in his line. He has to show that the line of the late peer ended and how he is the only legitimate heir around.
The Committee on Privilege of the House of Lords hears all cases of contested claims.
The College of heralds, Bibles, letters, parish registers and living people’s memories can be accepted as “evidence” in such cases.
An American could assume the title. However, if he were an American citizen he did not assume a seat in the House of Lords and at various periods there were laws against aliens owning property, so what property could go to him would probably be fought over.
He could, however, ask to be naturalized.
Americans could always inherit the titles. The peerage law made the point that whoever was next in line was the absolute owner of the title. However, the American either took up the title or it went dormant and no one could have it in his place unless he or his father had been attainted for treason of something. (think “The American Revolutionary War”).
Some Australians have been eligible for a title for nearly a century. The title is still dormant, no one else can have it, but the property has long since been handled by others.
US law said no citizen could be granted a title by a foreign government without permission of Congress but succession to it was not the same thing.
It didn’t much matter if any one took up the title or not as a title was not real property.
What mattered was the property and that was a more complicated story.
One story I read had an American captain who had fought against Great Britain succeeding to a title and walking into the House of Lords. If he was English enough to be entitled to sit in the House of Lords he was a traitor for fighting against the country. If he was American and therefore not a traitor, then he could not be brought before the House of Lords as the heir..
Having the title without the land was just being able to be called “My lord” instead of “Mr.” It was a social title and position. The title without anything else was to what Americans could succeed.
The seat in the House of Lords and property went to natural citizens and some naturalized ones.
Dual Citizenship did not exist in those days as far as I have been able to discover. Correction welcome. Except for USA which allows citizenship to any born inside its borders. For the most part diplomatic corps took their nationality with them and a child born to a diplomat in a foreign country was considered as born at home. The father’s domicile was still England, though his residence was in a different country.
A man could live for decades outside of England and yet have his main domicile be England as long as he did not become involved in politics against England or apply for naturalization.
Could those who come to this side of the pond live and work or do otherwise in Canada or some of the British possessions? Yes. There would be no problems with Canadians.
The US and Great Britain fought a couple of wars against each other and people of the US were considered aliens. If a subject of the king stayed on after the revolution and took part in the new country he was considered as having changed his allegiance. It cost several an inheritance. Naturalization took what ever time it took for a private Act of Parliament when it was in session.
Arms of the Lords Fairfax of Cameron, also adopted as the arms of Fairfax County, Virginia ~ Public Domain
A quick read of how it all came to pass on Wikipedia.
Americans could hold British titles — the title of Lord Fairfax of Cameron was held by Americans for several generations starting in 1798.
The title was somewhat forgotten by the family except as a curiosity until one of the heirs returned to England and was confirmed in the title in 1908:
The man in 1798 had not renounced his British citizenship so was not really an American. The one in 1900, became a British subject. However, despite the fact that the men did not claim the peerage while it was forgotten by their heirs, it remained dormant as no one else could claim it. When the man in 1900 decided to claim it, he had to prove he was next in line as did everyone else who claimed a peerage. Sons succeeding fathers merely had to prove that they were born after the parents married.
They had to trace their legitimate lineage back to the last known peer or to the first one if not a direct descendant of the last one.
When it came to property, it could go back to the female line. Most estates were made up of several small pieces of land as well as the major one. Some had secondary peerages as well. The marriage settlement of the next to last countess might have said that her property went back to their family if no direct descendant lived, or it could go to a female.
They could NOT, however, sit in the House of Lords. I think they probably managed to take the entailed property that went with the title because that only gave the man a life interest in it. If so, he would be required to marry quickly and have a son born in England.
Citizenship was also complicated by the fact that once a woman married, she assumed the citizenship of her husband. That was the case in the US until sometime in the 20th century. My great-great grandmother’s US passport application in the late 19th century stated she was a US citizen by virtue of her marriage to her husband who had been born in the States.
One thing I think ti is important to remember is English children of the aristocracy and gentry classes were traditionally fed their main meal, meaning, usually the meal with meat, in the middle of the day. Such is when most households had dinner, the idea dating back to the time Henry VIII or, perhaps, before. Henry VIII is said to have had his dinner at 11:30 A.M. Children’s meals remained settled at this time of day, even as the adult meal shifted into the afternoon and evening.
During the medieval period dinner was eaten at midday, but this meal was slowly moved up to 3 in the afternoon, then pushed up to five. These meals became elaborate affairs of at least two or three courses, which Louis Simond, a French/American traveler to London, described in wondrous detail in his travel diary. During Jane Austen’s time tea would be served an hour or so after the meal, or from 3-6 o’clock, depending on when dinner was served. Suppers became light snacks, except in the case of a grand ball, where elaborate buffets might be served. From Jane Austen’s World, we learn . . .
“At Chawton, Jane Austen’s own especial duty concerned breakfast. We can imagine her insisting on sharing at least some of the housekeeping duty with Cassandra, and Cassandra’s giving way over breakfast but insisting that Jane had the rest of day free for writing. Breakfast in Austen’s era was very different from the cold meat, coarse bread and ale of earlier ages, or the abundance of eggs, kidneys, bacon and so forth under which Victorian sideboards groaned. Rather it was an an elegant light meal of toast and rolls with tea, coffee or chocolate to drink, all taken off a handsome set of china. Jane’s job would have been to make the toast and boil the kettle at the dining room fire. Like many ladies, not trusting to clumsy servants, she may even have washed and dried the china, and put it away, together with the precious tea and sugar, in a dinning room closet.
“In 1798 Jane Austen writes of half past three being the customary dinner hour at Steventon, but by 1808 they are dining at five o’clock in Southampton. There are many mentions of the timing of dinner in the novels, but none is so explicit as in the fragment The Watsons. Tom Musgrave knows perfectly well that the unpretentious Watson family dine at three, and times his visit to embarrass them, arriving just as their servant is bringing in the tray of cutlery. Tom compounds his rudeness by boasting that he dines at eight: the latest dinner hour of any character. At Mansfield Parsonage they dine at half past four and at Northanger Abbey at five. The effect of London fashion can be seen in the difference between the half past four dinner at Longbourn and that at half past six at Netherfield.” – Jane Austen in Context, Janet Todd, p. 264
Children, at least, the ones in one of the typical Regency upper classes, did not typically eat with adults. They were fed by nannies or nursemaids in the nursery. Their meals remained stable, probably because it was just easier that way. A nursery tea, therefore, was the children’s meal just before bath and bed–or just bed in the earlier periods when a daily bath was not considered next to godliness. Whether they called it “tea” or not in Regency times, I do not know—perhaps originally it was “supper.” Although Etymology.com attests to the use of the word earlier, I have never seen any reference to the children’s meal being a “snack” at any time, and, it seems to me, using “snack” might bring out the reviewers who love to ding an author for using a modern word in a historical story. (Just saying . . .) The English use the word ‘”tea” for a meal, as well as a simple noun for a beverage.
verb – The meaning “have a mere bite or morsel, eat a light meal” is first attested 1807.
noun – Main modern meaning “a bite or morsel to eat hastily” is attested from 1757.
On the American continent we had what was called “cambric tea.” It is said cambric tea was first noted in the Scottish settlers, but we all know it could have been from any hard-working group settling a new country. According to CulinaryLore, “Cambric tea, sometimes called ‘nursery tea’ was hot water and milk, was an American slang term referring to a drink of hot water, milk, and a dash of tea, sometimes sweetened. It is also described as hot water with a little milk or cream and sugar, without any tea at all. It was given to children, supposedly to give them energy, or to help them feel grown up during tea time. It was also often served to the elderly. Cambric tea got its name from cambric fabric, which was white and thin, just like the tea. Cambric fabric gets its name from the French town of Cambrai, a textile center. Cambric tea was popular during the late 19th to early 20th centuries. It was also known as white tea, or hot water tea.” (Culinary Lore) As a small child, I recall have cambric tea with my great-grandmother, who also swore the tea was a way of fighting off the afternoon hunger every child experiences. She would sit with me, and we would have cambric tea together. Children were given cambric tea, which consisted of a scant spoon of sugar, a teaspoon or so of tea (poured from the pot, just like an adult’s) and then filled to the brim with warm milk.
Tea as a social even (as in tea time) really start off more in the 1830’s and becomes the more formal affair in Victorian and Edwardian times. During that later era “tea” became the working class meal as well.
You can find recipes for “nursery tea” online with lots of milk, sugar, and vanilla–basically a way to add a little more nutrition to a child’s tea. In Regency era, children often took their meals in the nursery and not with the family–so they might have nursery tea with their dinner. However, remember tea in Georgian and Regency time tea was still more of a beverage to be served as a possible refreshment to callers–or a beverage for late in the evening along with possibly some cakes or a light snack type meal before bed, but not so much a social event as in afternoon tea.
Also, if you’re looking for the children in a household to have something, it would not be too out of the ordinary for cook to have a treat for them–hot pastries or biscuits (the English version of cookies) or cakes. A child might well eat in the kitchen in a household that is not too formal.
Generally, in England, according to one of my close British friends, who tells me something of raising her children in England, “Nursery tea was the final meal for children during the day. They had a proper meal, dinner, at what we call lunch time. Nursery tea was half tea/half milk, bread and milk, and usually some cake for afters. I couldn’t restrain comment on my opinion of sending children to bed on nothing but milk and starch, and discovered that when my children were invited for tea at someone else’s house I was always assured that it would be an “egg tea,” meaning the children would have a boiled egg as well.
“This was of course long after the Regency and even the Victorians! But I would expect it was one of the meals that changed little. Probably since tea was so expensive it would be only a taste of tea or perhaps none at all–or some herbal tea. But I would believe that the base would most likely be bread and butter for the comfortable middle class and much the same for the wealthy–except perhaps in the north of England, Ireland, and Scotland, where oats were more commonly available than wheat, and then it would be a dish of porridge.”
Nursery tea” would then, in my opinion, most likely refer to a very simple meal, and it would probably be Victorian or possibly late Regency period, because it was only then that the grownups–the ladies!–started drinking tea in the afternoon. At that period, as I understand it, people routinely went from breakfast to dinner without eating in the meantime, except for “snacks” that eventually became known as elevenses and tea (as a time to eat, not a beverage). It was the advancing hour of dinner, from 5-6, which it was generally in the 18th century, to later in the day that gradually re-established the mid-day meal which had been called dinner before it moved later and later. In the days when dinner as the main meal was mid-day, there was supper in the evening. Nursery tea, therefore, could be considered an adaptation of supper for children!
Regency Redingote tells us, “Breakfast had been introduced into the beginning of the English day in the first decades of the eighteenth century. It was exactly what its name would suggest, the meal by which the fasting of the nighttime was broken. By the decade of the Regency, breakfast was well-established as a light morning meal. It usually consisted of bread, often toasted, or rolls with jam, preserves or marmalade, eggs and perhaps ham or bacon. Tea, coffee and chocolate were common beverages served with this meal, but ale was also part of many a gentlemen’s breakfast.
“. . . since up to the years of the Regency, lunch, or luncheon, was not a regular meal in England. The words “lunch” and “luncheon” entered the English language at the end of the sixteenth century, but with the meaning of a lump of bread or cheese. The words “nunch” and “nuncheon” are much older words which entered the language in the fourteenth century, when they had the meaning of a light snack between meals, usually accompanied by a drink. But none of these words had yet been chosen as the name for a meal which was taken between breakfast and dinner.
“As you might imagine, many people, particularly ladies, found it difficult to go from breakfast to dinner without sustenance. In the decade prior to the Regency, ladies of the leisure classes began to take a light meal around 1 o’clock, usually alone or with immediate family. Typically, this was a repast of cold dishes, usually bread, meat, cheese and fruit. Wine, tea or coffee were the most common beverages served at the meal, but seldom were beer or ale on the table. By the Regency, many ladies of the beau monde in the cities were sharing this meal as a social occasion, men seldom partook. It was during these years that this midday meal was christened lunch or luncheon, luncheon being the more upper-class and socially-acceptable term. Nuncheon was a term for the mid-day meal of the lower classes.”
Yet, I have again digressed. From The Cook’s Complete Guide on the Principles of Frugality, Comfort, and Elegance (1810), we learn . . .
For more of what was used for some receipts for different infant food, as well as some other interesting pointers for infant and children diets, check this article on Regency Reader.
I recently received a question from a reader who had seen something in another book about a young child being hanged for a crime, and the person wondered if such was true.
Unfortunately, such was true, but it was not as widespread as one might think. I do know that right before the Regency began there were an inordinate number of hangings in 1802 and 1803. In the uneasy peace between 1802-1803, when the Navy was half-decommissioned and even the old, rotting hulks in the Thames were full of ‘criminals’, there were more hangings than normal. Navy ships were being used to protect privateers from the French and in Egypt still to stop French takeover, as well as, in Ireland to put down the Emmet rebellion. So with the prisons overflowing and not enough ships to transport convicts here to Australia, there was a greater tendency to hang people for minor crimes – even children, though the trials were presided over by judges and all was not simply a riot itself.
On a side note, for those of you unfamiliar with the Emmett Rebellion, or better known as the Irish rebellion of 1803, it was an attempt by Irish republicans to seize the seat of the British government in Ireland, Dublin Castle, and triggered a nationwide insurrection. Renewing the struggle of 1798, they were organized under a reconstituted United Irish directorate. Hopes of French aid, of a diversionary rising by radical militants in England, and of Presbyterians in the north-east rallying once more to the cause of a republic were disappointed. The rising in Dublin misfired, and after a series of street skirmishes, the rebels dispersed. Their principal leader, Robert Emmet, was executed, while many simply went into exile.
Hanging was a very pubic and very gruesome practice. Quite often a person would be brought before the jury and charged with the theft of an item worth more than 40 shillings. The grand jury would indict for a lesser value and the trial jury would often convict of a still lesser sum. If someone took a dress or cloak off a line, the value would probably be cut down to something like 10 shillings so the criminal would be transported or spend a few months in prison rather than to be hanged.
However, there were no real public prosecutors so if a shop keeper or a homeowner wanted to make an example of a child or a man he could press forward with his claim more diligently. Many just wanted that person stopped from stealing and an example made, but they were particularly anxious to have anyone hanged.
Many of the children brought to trial were not of the London underworld, but were just poor wretches caught up in something they did not truly understand.
Children were expected to know right from wrong by age SEVEN. However, while a child of seven could be executed for a crime, a child of that age was seldom allowed to be a witness because of lack of credibility.
Thinking themselves merciful, those accused were made to “read” Psalm 51:1 to be saved from hanging, that is, if the offense still provided for the benefit of clergy. The illiterate class often taught the verse to those who could not read in order to save someone from hanging. Even small children could be made to “recite” it.
Psalm 51:1 – “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness; according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.”
Many of the adults were not at all stoic when it came to be hanged. Grown men broke down and cursed, sobbed, and in other ways made a scene. Some of the children might have been too frightened to move. Children often were not heavy enough to break their necks with the jerk. It was hard to hang children because the rope was too think and the children were too light. Quite a few were sent off to Australia instead or had their sentences made lighter by an appeal to the King (really to the Home Secretary) if there was anyone to care. Though the number of people hanged was high, it was only a percentage of those sentenced to death. The Benefit of Clergy privilege (all those who could read or quote the “neck verse”) plus pardons, and commutations of sentences reduced the number of those actually hanged.
Quite often a person would be brought before the jury charged with the theft of an item worth more than 40 shillings. The grand jury would indict for a lesser value, and the trial jury would often convict of a still lesser sum. If someone took a dress or cloak off a line, the value would probably be cut down to something like 10 shillings so the criminal would be transported or spend a few months in prison rather than be hanged.
However, there were no real public prosecutors so if a shop keeper or a homeowner wanted to make an example of a child or a man he could press forward with his claim more diligently. Many just wanted that person stopped from stealing and an example made but weren’t particularly anxious to have anyone hanged.
Jane Austen World has an excellent article on the “spectacle” of a public hanging, which included vendors selling wares to the gathering crowd, as well as the adverts announcing events. Check out: Regency Crime
Often when one reads a Regency tale, the hero is a “lord” of some kind and sits in Parliament in the House of Lords, but what happens if the hero is, say, a younger son or a man like Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, who has a fortune and owns a great deal of land, but has no title? That is where the House of Commons comes in. Where the House of Lords was filled by a men with titles, the House of Commons could be filled with younger sons of said lords, or gentlemen, or members of the gentry.
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 members known as members of Parliament (MPs), who are elected to represent constituencies by the first-past-the-post system and hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved.
The House of Commons of England began to evolve in the 13th and 14th centuries. In 1707 it became the House of Commons of Great Britain after the political union with Scotland, and from 1801 it also became the House of Commons for Ireland after the political union of Great Britain and Ireland.
Although the House of Commons does not formally elect the prime minister, by convention and in practice, the prime minister is answerable to the House, and therefore must maintain its support. In this way, the position of the parties in the House is an overriding importance. Thus, whenever the office of prime minister falls vacant, the monarch appoints the person who has the support of the house, or who is most likely to command the support of the house—normally the leader of the largest party in the house—while the leader of the second-largest party becomes the leader of the Opposition.
The Commons may indicate its lack of support for the government by rejecting a motion of confidence or by passing a motion of no confidence. Confidence and no confidence motions are phrased explicitly: for instance, “That this House has no confidence in His Majesty’s Government.” Many other motions were until recent decades considered confidence issues, even though not explicitly phrased as such: in particular, important bills that were part of the government’s agenda. The annual Budget is still considered a matter of confidence. When a government has lost the confidence of the House of Commons, the prime minister is expected either to resign, making way for another MP who can command confidence, or request the monarch to dissolve Parliament, thereby precipitating a general election.
The British parliament of today largely descends, in practice, from the Parliament of England, although the 1706 Treaty of Union, and the Acts of Union that ratified the Treaty, created a new Parliament of Great Britain to replace the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland, with the addition of 45 MPs and sixteen Scottish representative peers. Later still the Acts of Union 1800 brought about the abolition of the Parliament of Ireland and enlarged the Commons at Westminster with 100 Irish members, creating the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
The Middle English word common or commune, which is derived from the Anglo-Norman commune, meant “of general, public, or non-private nature” as an adjective and, as a substantive, “the common body of the people of any place; the community or commonalty” in the singular; “the common people, the commonalty; the lower order, as distinguished from those of noble or knight or gentle rank”, or “the burgers of a town; the body of free citizens, bearing common burdens, and exercising common rights; (hence) the third estate in the English constitution; the body of people, not ennobled, and represented by the Lower House of Parliament” in the plural. [Oxford English Dictionary. Second edition, volume III: Cham – Creeky. Clarendon, Oxford 1989, pp. 564–567]. The word has survived to this day in the original Anglo-Norman phrase soit baillé aux communes, with which a bill is transmitted from the House of Lords to the House of Commons. [Companion to Standing Orders UK Parliament]
Observations on the House of Commons During the Regency:
**I do not believe the MPs had offices, but I would be happy if someone else could prove me wrong. Remember, most of the MPs were aristocratic younger sons. Most members of the House of Commons were gentlemen. They might go en mass to Parliament from their club with their chums, almost all of whom served. For most, serving was more of a hobby than a responsibility to their country.
As a point of reference, I found this book had some merit in answering my questions on the House of Commons, but there are not any I have discovered that would provide me the information I might need as a writer of historicals set in the early 1800s.
This is a historical account of two important conferences held between the House of Lords and the House of Commons in April 1671. The book examines the privileges and rights of both houses of parliament, and provides a fascinating insight into the political and legal structures of seventeenth-century England. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. ~ It is in the public domain.
**You did know that because these were, for the most part, idle rich who slept so late that Parliament did not begin until late afternoon?
**A parliamentary borough was a town or former town that had been incorporated under a royal charter, giving it the right to send two elected burgesses as Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons. It was not unusual for the physical boundary of the settlement to change as the town developed or contracted over time, for example due to changes in its trade and industry, so that the boundaries of the parliamentary borough and of the physical settlement were no longer the same.
**For centuries, constituencies electing members to the House of Commons did not change to reflect population shifts, and in some places the number of electors became so few that they could be bribed or otherwise influenced by a single wealthy patron. In the early 19th century, reformists scornfully called these boroughs “rotten boroughs” because they had so few inhabitants left, or “pocket boroughs”, because their MPs were elected by the whim of the patron, thereby being “in his pocket”; the actual votes of the electors were a mere formality since all or most of them voted as the patron instructed them, with or without bribery. These were often referred to as “rotten boroughs” or “pocket buroughs.”
**Among the most notorious of these “rotten boroughs” were Old Sarum, which had only six voters for two MPs, and Dunwich, which had largely collapsed into the sea from coastal erosion. At the same time, large cities such as Manchester received no separate representation (although their eligible residents were entitled to vote in the corresponding county seat). Also notable were the pocket boroughs, small constituencies controlled by wealthy landowners and aristocrats, whose “nominees” were invariably elected.
**In the 17th century Members of Parliament (MPs) were often elected against their will. On 2 March 1624, a resolution was passed by the House of Commons making it illegal for an MP to quit or willfully give up his seat, though I have had others tell me this was an incorrect assumption, so if you wish to know yea or nay, then check the specific time period. However, under the constitutional Act, the Act of Settlement of 1701, and subsequent legislation, any Member of Parliament accepting an office of profit under the Crown would be disqualified from his or her seat. This became the basis for the current legal practice of using sinecure posts such as the Chiltern Hundred to effect resignation.
**It did not matter if the borough is full of corrupt politics or not. All elections were official and set by the government. A parliament was generally about 7 years, but sometimes there needed to be an election between those dates because the prime minister died, the king died, or the member from a county or borough died. A member could nor resign his seat. Voting took several days and was in the open—no secret ballot. Before taking his seat in the House of Commons — or House of Lords for that matter– the member had to take an oath of allegiance to the king and opposing the Pope and Roman Catholic religion.
**There were some by-elections when a man died or succeeded to a peerage. William Pitt the younger might even have been a minor when he was first elected to the House of Commons. In any event he was young and was prime minister at 24.
**The young man’s father or his uncle or his mother’s brother or his mother’s uncle probably had a borough under his control. There were quite a few of these in Cornwall alone. These rotten boroughs were safe seats for sprigs of the aristocracy.
**Earl Spencer sent his oldest son into politics in the House of Commons. The father could be on some committees and hire the son to be a clerk. Some young men preferred learning to manage the estates to playing politics.
**Would he be geographically restricted in running for a seat? Like Congress? No. They were not restricted to the county in which they lived.
** Unless one is dead or is made a peer, one could not resign from the House of Commons. One had to say one was taking the Chiltern Hundreds to resign from the House of Commons between elections.
**First off, a seat in the House of Commons was a lifetime position, and there were MPs who found themselves therein against their will and until the early 1700s, they could not resign.
**Things changed in 1701 with the Act of Settlement (and some subsequent legislation) which made it illegal for any MP who accepted an office of the Crown for profit to remain in the House of Commons. I think it was John Pitt who first used this mechanism to resign – i.e., taking the Chiltern Hundreds. Pitt used the Place Act of 1742.
**The Chiltern Hundreds refers to the three ‘hundreds’ (administrative areas in Buckinghamshire) of Burnham, Desborough and Stoke. These ‘hundreds’ (the whole country was divided into ‘hundreds’ for administrative purposes), are located around the geographical area known as the Chiltern Hills. Note that only Desborough was actually in the Chiltern Hills. Anyway, the Crown office for profit involved in the Chiltern Hills instance was the (by then) nominal post of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham. But at this time, an MP could also resign from the House of Commons if he was given the Stewardship of the Manor of Old Shoreham (about a dozen MPs used this one in the latter half of the 18th century), and in the mid 19th century, the Stewardship of the Manor of Hempholme was used, as have a number of offer Crown offices from time to time.
**A ‘Parliament’ refers to the full term served by an elected government (after a national election to fill all seats in the House of Commons).
**A new Parliament does not commence if a sitting member dies (or a member succeeds to a title and leaves the House of Commons to take his seat in the House of Lords). In those cases, a by-election is held to fill the casual vacancy, but it does not ‘re-start’ the life or term of the Parliament.
(Editors Note: Voice of the Women’s Liberation Movement was the first national women’s liberation newsletter. The first issue appeared in March of 1968 and the final issue in June of 1969. Several future CWLU members worked on it during its 7 issue lifetime. Edited by Jo Freeman aka “Joreen”, out of Chicago, Illinois, it provided a way for many small groups across the country to communicate.) https://www.uic.edu/ orgs/cwluherstory/ CWLUArchive/voice. html
In 1968, the Women’s Liberation Movement staged a demonstration at the annual Miss America Beauty pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey. They protested the idea that the most important thing about a woman is how she looks. Women’s liberation attacked “male chauvinism, commercialization of beauty, racism and oppression symbolized by the Pageant.”(JoFreeman.com)
I am a product of that particular generation. I was a teen in the 1960s and a young woman in 1970s. Generally, I was raised in the Southern states, and I thoroughly understand the “good ole boys” system. Recently, at my retirement recognition gathering at the high school where I taught for many years, instead of praising me for my dedication to my academic area or to my students, my principal stood up and said, “If you have ever served on a committee with Regina, you know that she has no problem in speaking her mind.” Well, that is something, but, obviously, not how one would like to be remembered after 40 years in the classroom. In other words, I had “ruffled his feathers” on more than one occasion by not always conforming to how he thought a woman should act. I have never been subservient to a male. That was my mother’s generation. I am a daughter of the women’s movement. So, like Jane Austen, while I write about romance and tradition and virtue, I still place my female characters in roles where they “defy” the never ending patriarchal society in which they live.
Title page from the third edition of A Serious Proposal Mary Astell – http://ots.utoronto.ca/ users/kirsch/ Mastell.jpg Author has been dead for over 70 years Public Domain Uploaded by Awadewit
If all Men are born free, how is it that all Women are born Slaves? – Mary Astell, Some Reflections upon Marriage
In 18th Century England, certain educated women began to question why men did not see women as rational creatures. Among those were Mary Astell (whose advocacy for equal educational opportunities for women earned her the title “the first English feminist”) and Catherine Macaulay, who discussed such issues as the lack of a female educational system and the absolute authority of males in the family unit. One must wonder if these ideas influenced a young Jane Austen or perhaps it was the forward thinking males within her family. In each of Austen’s six main novels, the concept of marriage is told from a female perspective. Is Jane telling us that the male view is obsolete?
Mary Wollstonecraft by John Opie (c. 1797) John Opie – National Portrait Gallery: NPG 1237 ~ Public Domain
It would be difficult to call Austen a feminist because her point of view is very subtle. Yet, her message has been read by millions of women around the world, and I openly admit that it influenced me. But who influenced Jane? We shall never know for certain, but it is likely that one of those could have been Mary Wollstonecraft.
In 1792 (when Jane was but an impressionable 16-year-old), Wollstonecraft released A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. As an English teacher, this was one of my favorite pieces to bring to my students for it has strong parallels to modern times. Wollstonecraft openly stated that both men and women have the potential to conduct themselves as reasonable and rational human beings. One sex did not have dominance over the other. Wollstonecraft also attacked earlier writers, especially John Milton and Rosseau, for advocating the subordinate position of women in a man’s life. The author’s idea that the 18th Century English educated their women only in how to attract (or “trap”) a man into marriage, but did nothing to equip them with the skills to be good wives and mothers was quite controversial. With Vindication’s release, new doors opened for women writers.
However, Wollstonecraft soon lost her life to childbirth. (BTW, her daughter was Mary Godwin, who eventually became the wife of Percy Shelley and the author of Frankenstein.) Afterwards, Wollstonecraft’s husband, William Godwin, wrote a sometimes embellished Memoir of his wife’s life. He told the world of the love affair that produced an illegitimate child and of her suicide attempts and of her rejection of Christianity. Wollstonecraft was labeled an atheist and a “whore.” Critics held a new weapon in discrediting her work, and indirectly, the writings of all women.
Unfortunately, Mary’s downfall brought close scrutiny on those who followed. A female writer could not be seen as advocating the overthrow of marriage rituals. In 1798, the Reverend Richard Polwhele published an anti-feminist satirical poem entitled “The Unsex’d Females.” In it, Polwhele argued that the “sparkle of confident intelligence” was proof that female writers were immodest and that it was a sign of the “corrupt” times that anyone would go so far to consider a woman’s work on the same level as a man’s. Please remember that it was that same year (1798) when the publisher Cadell refused Rev. Austen’s offer of his daughter Jane’s First Impressions (later to be retitled Pride and Prejudice) manuscript.
Jane Austen does one thing better than any other female writer. She writes dominate female characters with spotless reputations. In each novel, one finds the seduced-and-abandoned plot embedded in the main story line, but Austen’s subject is not courtship. Kathryn B. Stockton of the University of Utah says, “Austen’s works are about ‘marriageship: the cautious investigation of a field of eligible males, the delicate maneuvering to meet them, the refined outpacing of rivals, the subtle circumventing of parental power and the careful management, which turns the idle flirtation into a firm offer of marriage with a good settlement for life. All this must be carried on in a way that the heroine maintains her self-respect, her moral dignity, and her character as daughter, sister, friend, and neighbor.’” For myself, I am more inclined to agree with G. K. Chesterton, who said, “Jane Austen could do one thing neither Charlotte Bronte or George Eliot could do: She could cooly and sensibly describe a man.”
In Persuasion, Austen wrote, “But let me observe that all histories are against you, all stories, prose and verse. If I had such a memory as Benwick, I could bring you fifty quotations in a moment on my side the argument, and I do not think I ever opened a book in my life, which had not something to say upon woman’s inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman’s fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men.”
“…Men have had every advantage of us in telling their story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove any thing.”
After Wollstonecraft’s “downfall,” women writers, even those who did not express views of “female philosophers,” had difficulty finding a market for their writing and gaining respect for their talents in a male-dominated occupation. They had to stress the virtue of ladylike qualities and respectable lives. Rights for women could not be their focus.
At a Christmas outing to the Biltmore estate near Asheville, North Carolina in 2018, I struck up a conversation with a man from the Middle East, likely Pakistan, but I cannot be confident, as I was not bold enough to ask. As we moved from room to room, we exchanged more than one quip about the exhibits—things like the small size of the beds or the fact the house has its own bowling alley. For those of you unfamiliar with the Biltmore Estate, it is a large (6950.4 acre or 10.86 square miles) private estate and tourist attraction near Asheville, North Carolina. Biltmore House, the main residence, is a Chåteauesque-style mansion built by George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1889 and 1895 and is the largest privately owned house in the United States, at 178,926 square feet (16,622.8 m2) of floor space (135,280 square feet (12,568 m2) of living area). Still owned by George Vanderbilt’s descendants, it stands today as one of the most prominent remaining examples of the Gilded Age.
The greenhouse entrance
As we made our way from one roped area to another, our conversation also took a more serious tone. At length, he asked me, “Why does the American society view only the negatives? I have never understood why in such a great land, one that can produce such opulence, why the Americans I meet walk around in profound sadness.”
In truth, I was a bit taken aback. I admit that I am the person who always sees the glass half empty—even with my age in the 70s, I cannot keep hidden the hopes of the little girl who was forever forbidden what others took for granted. Touring rooms at a grand estate is not a place for such a heavy conversation, but I did ask him if he had ever read “The Unhappy American Way,” an article from the British philosopher and mathematician, Bertrand Russell. He had not, and so I suggested that he might find it interesting. Soon we parted ways as his party decided to loop through an open area again, while my friend Kim and I headed for the exit. It was well after midnight, and our “pumpkin” was looking more and more like a frost-covered SUV.
However, some two weeks later, I received a quick email on my website from the gentleman (I am a writer; most assuredly, I handed him one of my cards to pass along to the women in his party.), in which he thanked me for the recommendation. In the email, he spoke of the parts he found both enlightening and the ones he thought disturbing. Therefore, I thought I might share the piece with you. It is quite short. Let me know what you think.
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, political activist, and Nobel laureate. At various points in his life, Russell considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had “never been any of these things, in any profound sense”. Russell was born in Monmouthshire into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in the United Kingdom. In the early 20th century, Russell led the British “revolt against idealism. [Russell, Bertrand, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell. (3 vols.) Allen & Unwin: London, 1967-1969.]
[Before you read this, please understand that I spent 40 years as a teacher. I always preferred to challenge my students — to permit them to question what they read and accept or disregard it. I offer you the same challenge.]
“The Unhappy American Way” by Bertrand Russell
It used to be said that English people take their pleasures sadly. No doubt this would still be true if they had any pleasures to take, but the price of alcohol and tobacco in my country has provided sufficient external causes for melancholy. I have sometimes thought that the habit of taking pleasures sadly has crossed the Atlantic, and I have wondered what it is that makes so many English-speaking people somber in their outlook in spite of good health and a good income.
In the course of my travels in America I have been impressed by a kind of fundamental malaise which seems to me extremely common and which poses difficult problems for the social reformer. Most social reformers have held the opinion that, if poverty were abolished and there were no more economic insecurity, the millennium would have arrived. But when I look at the faces of people in opulent cars, whether in your country or in mine, I do not see that look of radiant happiness which the aforesaid social reformers had led me to expect. In nine cases out of ten, I see instead a look of boredom and discontent and an almost frantic longing for something that might tickle the jaded palate.
But it is not only the very rich who suffer in this way. Professional men very frequently feel hopelessly thwarted. There is something that they long to do or some public object that they long to work for. But if they were to indulge their wishes in these respects, they fear that they would lose their livelihood. Their wives are equally unsatisfied, for their neighbor, Mrs So-and-So, has gone ahead more quickly, has a better car, a larger apartment and grander friends.
Life for almost everybody is a long competitive struggle where very few can win the race, and those who do not win are unhappy. On social occasions when it is derigueur to seem cheerful, the necessary demeanor is stimulated by alcohol. But the gaiety does not ring true and anybody who has just one drink too many is apt to lapse into lachrymose melancholy.
One finds this sort of thing only among English-speaking people. A Frenchman while he is abusing the Government is as gay as a lark. So is an Italian while he is telling you how his neighbor has swindled him. Mexicans, when they are not actually starving or actually being murdered, sing and dance and enjoy sunshine and food and drink with a gusto which is very rare north of the Mexican frontier. When Andrew Jackson[2] conquered Pensacola from the Spaniards, his wife looked out of the window and saw the population enjoying itself although it was Sunday. She pointed out the scandal to her husband, who decreed that cheerfulness must cease forthwith. And it did.
When I try to understand what it is that prevents so many Americans from being as happy as one might expect, it seems to me that there are two causes, of which one goes much deeper than the other. The one that goes least deep is the necessity for subservience in some large organization. If you are an energetic man with strong views as to the right way of doing the job with which you are concerned, you find yourself invariably under the orders of some big man at the top who is elderly, weary and cynical. Whenever you have a bright idea, the boss puts a stopper on it. The more energetic you are and the more vision you have, the more you will suffer from the impossibility of doing any of the things that you feel ought to be done. When you go home and moan to your wife, she tells you that you are a silly fellow and that if you became the proper sort of yesman your income would soon be doubled. If you try divorce and remarriage it is very unlikely that there will be any change in this respect. And so you are condemned to gastric ulcers and premature old age.
It was not always so. When Dr. Johnson[3] compiled his dictionary, he compiled it as he thought fit. When he felt like saying that oats is food for men in Scotland and horses in England, he said so. When he defined a fishing-rod as a stick with a fish at one end and a fool at the other, there was nobody to point out to him that a remark of this sort would damage the sale of his great work among fishermen. But if, in the present day, you are (let us say) a contributor to an encyclopedia, there is an editorial policy which is solemn, wise and prudent, which allows no room for jokes, no place for personal preferences and no tolerance for idiosyncrasies. Everything has to be flattened out except where the prejudices of the editor are concerned. To these you must conform, however little you may share them. And so you have to be content with dollars instead of creative satisfaction. And the dollars, alas, leave you sad.
This brings me to the major cause of unhappiness, which is that most people in America act not on impulse but on some principle, and that principles upon which people act are usually based upon a false psychology and a false ethic. There is a general theory as to what makes for happiness and this theory is false. Life is concerned as a competitive struggle in which felicity consists in getting ahead of your neighbor. The joys which are not competitive are forgotten.
Now, I will not for a moment deny that getting ahead of your neighbor is delightful, but it is not the only delight of which human beings are capable. There are innumerable things which are not competitive. It is possible to enjoy food and drink without having to reflect that you have a better cook and a better wine merchant than your former friends whom you are learning to cold shoulder. It is possible to be fond of your wife and your children without reflecting how much better she dresses than Mrs. So-and-So and how much better they are at athletics than the children of that old stick-in-the-mud Mr. Such-and-Such. There are those who can enjoy music without thinking how cultured the other ladies in their women’s club will be thinking them. There are even people who can enjoy a fine day in spite of the fact that the sun shines on everybody. All these simple pleasures are destroyed as soon as competitiveness gets the upper hand.
But it is not only competitiveness that is the trouble. I could imagine a person who has turned against competitiveness and can only enjoy after conscious rejection of the competitive element. Such a person, seeing the sunshine in the morning, says to himself, “Yes, I may enjoy this and indeed I must, for it is a joy open to all.” And however bored he may become with the sunshine he goes on persuading himself that he is enjoying it because he thinks he ought to.
“But,” you will say, “are you maintaining that our actions ought not to be governed by moral principles? Are you suggesting that every whim and every impulse should be given free rein? Do you consider that if So-and-So’s nose annoys you by being too long, that gives you a right to tweak it?” “Sir,” you will continue with indignation,” “your doctrine is one which would uproot all the sources of morality and loosen all the bonds which hold society together. Only self-restraint, self-repression, iron self-control make it possible to endure the abominable beings among whom we have to live. No, sir! Better misery and gastric ulcers than such chaos as your doctrine would produce!”
I will admit at once that there is force in this objection. I have seen many noses that I should have liked to tweak, but never once have I yielded to the impulse. But this, like everything else, is a matter of degree. If you always yield to impulse, you are mad. If you never yield to impulse, you gradually dry up and very likely become mad to boot. In a life which is to be healthy and happy, impulse, though not allowed to run riot, must have sufficient scope to remain alive and to preserve that variety and diversity of interest which is natural to a human being. A life lived on a principle, no matter what, is too narrowly determined, too systematic and uniform, to be happy. However much you care about success, you should have times when you are merely enjoying life without a thought of subsequent gain. However proud you may be, as president of a women’s club, of your impeccable culture, you should not be ashamed of reading a lowbrow book if you want to. A life which is all principle is a life on rails. The rails may help toward rapid locomotion, but preclude the joy of wandering. Man spent some million years wandering before he invented rails, and his happiness still demands some reminiscence of the earlier ages of freedom.
NOTE! PLEASE LEAVE YOUR POLITICAL RHETORIC ELSEWHERE. THE ELECTION IS OVER, AND MY BLOG IS NOT THE PLACE FOR IT.
The drink, Champagne, received it name from the French region of Champagne and has been produced locally in France since the Gallo-Roman era. “Champenoise” vintners produced a pale, pink wine from Pinot Noir grapes. However, it was not always an easy go. Champagne, the region, was more northerly than was its counterpart and competition, Burgundy. This created a major problem because of the cold snaps that interrupted the fermentation process. This could cause the wine bottles to explode because yeasts and sugars would form carbon dioxide.
This was both a blessing and a learning experience for those producing champagne. The bottles that did not explode contained effervescent bubbles that the French royalty found to be most pleasing. “In 1715, the Duc d’ Orléans began serving locally produced ‘vin mousseux’ (sparkling wine) at his court in Paris’ Palais Royal, entertaining wealthy and famous guests with a drink that was generally only accessible to the high aristocracy. Its popularity exploded among Parisian elites. But sparking wine remained an accidental novelty item. And in pre-Industrial Revolution France, most winemakers still frowned upon it and sought to eliminate those pesky bubbles.” [History of Champagne – Paris Unlocked]
The BBC website tells us, “Some of the biggest innovations of Champagne came down to the ingenuity of several women. In the 19th Century, the Napoleonic Code restricted women from owning businesses in France without permission from a husband or father. However, widows were exempt from the rule, creating a loophole for Barbe-Nicole Clicquot-Ponsardin, Louise Pommery and Lily Bollinger – among others – to turn vineyards into empires and ultimately transform the Champagne industry, permanently changing how it’s made and marketed.
“In 1798, Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin married François Clicquot, who then ran his family’s small textile and wine business, originally called Clicquot-Muiron et Fils in Reims. It turned into a financial disaster. When Clicquot died in 1805, leaving her widowed at 27 years old, she made the unconventional choice to take over the company.
“‘It was a very unusual decision for a woman of her class,’ said Tilar Mazzeo, cultural historian and author of The Widow Clicquot. ‘It would have been extremely unusual for her to have a business, because she didn’t need to… She could have spent her life in drawing rooms and as a society hostess.'” [“The Little Known History of Champagne” https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230301-the-little-known-history-of-champagne]
Up until around 1802, all the wine from abroad had to be imported in casks to be bottled in England. Though the beverages were allowed to be imported in bottles after that, most importers continued buying wine in casks. The smugglers usually brought in wine in casks and kegs. Bottles are much more difficult to handle. They were both heavy and noisy when they rubbed against each other and were easily broken. Wine could not be drunk immediately as it had to settle so it was delivered to a bottler who acted as wholesaler.
I can see how this might play out in a plot point in a book, depending on an individual’s or family’s wealth. The wealthiest could afford to buy entire casks for their private cellars, whereas the not-as-wealthy might buy smaller quantities in individual bottles from a wine merchant to stock their cellars, and the not-wealthy might only be drinking their own home-made wines and beers, probably in bottles they cleaned and reused. I am confident the variations also depended on what the particular beverage was. Obviously, from the above information, we know most of the champagne people drank in the Georgian era was likely made in England by adding extra sugar into imported French wine and then bottling (or re-bottling) it for additional fermentation.
Obviously, champagne does not do as well in casks. Therefore, we might make the assumption that most of the “champagne” sold in England during the Napoleonic War was actually sparkling wine and not the bubbly kind. That being said, some French wines were imported through Portugal. Many advances were made to champagne in France, but they were not readily available in England during the war.
One must remember when writing Regency tales, the wire cage and cork affair sealing champagne bottles had not yet been invented. It was known as “The Devil’s Wine” because of the frequency of explosions caused by the fizz. Like many of you who read Regencies, I read a lot of people drinking champagne and always wonder if this was a real habit or not.
For most of Western history, marriage was a private contract between two families. Until the 16th-century, Christian churches accepted the validity of a marriage on the basis of a couple’s declarations. If two people claimed that they had exchanged marital vows—even without witnesses—the Catholic Church accepted that they were validly married. During the Regency, couples who chose to marry could be joined by several means. Many chose to purchase what was known as an ordinary, common or standard license. Others chose to have what was known as a calling of the banns. 
“There were two kinds of marriage licences that could be issued: the usual was known as a common licence and named one or two parishes where the wedding could take place, within the jurisdiction of the person who issued the license. The clergyman who administered the ceremony had to be associated with the Church of England. He would issue the licence as a cost of a few shillings to a pound, depending upon the wealth of those applying. The license was valid for 15 days. The couple had the option of marrying in either the parish of the bride or that of the groom. They must be a resident of the parish in which they were to marry. (Do you recall Wickham had to wait to marry to Lydia Bennet until he could establish residency. “We were married, you know, at St. Clement’s, because Wickham’s lodgings were in that parish. And it was settled that we should all be there by eleven o’clock.”) Both the groom and the bride had to make sworn statements that no impediments existed that would cancel their marriage vows.
The poor often married without benefit of clergy or ceremony–they just called themselves married and that was that (made divorce a lot easier and possible, too). Needless to say, the Church of England heartily disapproved. The old custom–marriage by cohabitation had been legal before the Hardwick Act of 1753, and there was the even older custom of handfasting–often held with the very poor, particularly since marriage was more about a legal agreement as to the disposition of property and inheritance from a legal alliance. 
Every Woman Dreams... 