Every Woman Dreams...

The Obsession with Money and Society in Austen’s Novels

Posted on March 25, 2022 by Regina Jeffers

Austen’s novels speak loudly with society’s obsession with money and connections. Money and status was obtained through marriage. What we soon come to accept as a reader of Jane Austen’s novels is that her heroines marry for love (and a bit money). It is not ironic that Austen’s heroines marry within their class. It was expected that a woman do so. Harriet Smith in Emma is criticized for she aspires to wed into the landed gentry. The hero gentlemen in Austen’s books have money, which they generally earn by being a the owner of an estate and collecting rents, as in Fitzwilliam Darcy’s case in Pride and Prejudice or Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility, or from a living bestowed upon the man by a land owner, as in the case of Edward Ferrars in Sense and Sensibility or Henry Tilney, in Northanger Abbey, who is comfortably placed as a beneficed clergyman on his father’s estate.

When we learn of Sir Walter Elliot’s nod of acceptance to Captain Wentworth in Persuasion or of Darcy’s acceptance of the Gardiners’s and Mr. Bingley’s connections to trade, we “praise” the men. These actions are examples of Jane Austen’s values. The fact they more rightly fit the values of the current century is pure happenstance.

Austen’s feelings as applied to silly girls such as Lydia Bennet and Harriet Smith are obvious. She also disapproves of snobs and women who pursue rich men, as in the case of Caroline Bingley in Pride and Prejudice, Lucy Steele in Sense and Sensibility, Elizabeth Elliot in Persuasion, Mrs. Elton in Emma, and Maria Bertram in Mansfield Park. Rakes are often found upon Austen’s page. Mr. George Wickham in Pride and Prejudice woos half of Meryton with his lies. He has no intention of marrying Lydia Bennet until his hand is forced by Mr. Darcy. Mr. Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility is equally as vile. Frank Church plays Emma against Jane Fairfax. Tom Bertram in Mansfield Park has both his good points and his bad ones. He starts off the novel as Mary Crawford’s love interest, and he’s instrumental in getting the “Mansfield theatricals” off the ground. Tom is also responsible for a lot of the major plot points that dominate the start of the novel. His gambling debts are part of the reason why Sir Thomas has to go to Antigua to take care of his financial problems. Tom’s debts also mean that Edmund won’t be able to move into the Parsonage at Mansfield Park when he’s ordained, which of course results in the Grants and the Crawfords moving in. And Tom introduces Mr. Yates, Julia’s future husband, to the Bertrams. Mr. Elliot in Persuasion not only attempts to seduce Anne, but we discover he has much to do with the poor conditions in which Mrs. Smith must live.

Austen’s pages are also full of the ridiculous: Mr. Collins, Mrs. Bennet, and Sir William Lucas in Pride and Prejudice; Lady Bertram in Mansfield Park; Mary Musgrove and Mrs. Musgrove in Persuasion; Mr. and Mrs. Allen in Northanger Abbey; and Mrs. Jennings in Sense and Sensibility.

Austen’s heroines are intelligent females, as was she. Her family permitted Austen much latitude. She discussed politics and religion and society’s issues with her brothers and her father. One can easily imagine Austen arguing with her brothers over important issues in the same manner as her heroines do with the heroes of her books. The difference in Austen and her heroines is that she never married. Many take these “liberties” that she presents her characters as being a “women’s liberation” sort of thing. I beg to differ on that opinion. Although Austen may have hoped for more freedoms for women, she is accepting of what many thought could not be changed. She is no Mary Wollstonecraft writing A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Austen was writing fiction based on what she knew of society. In John Wiltshire’s essay (found in The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, edited by Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster, Cambridge University, 14 February 2011), Wiltshire suggests that Emma and Knightley are the most compatible couple in Austen’s works, for the pair are comparable in intelligence, wit, empathy, and confidence. Darcy and Elizabeth trail in Wiltshire’s estimation, especially because of a lack of confidence in their relationship found in both Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet.

Posted in Austen Authors, British history, estates, family, Georgian Era, historical fiction, Jane Austen, literature, Living in the Regency, marriage, marriage customs, Pride and Prejudice, reading, reading habits, Regency personalities, Regency romance, romance | Tagged Austen's characters, author real-life, characterization, Emma, gentlemen and ladies, gentry, Mansfield Park, marriage, marriage for love, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Pride and Prejduce, Regency Era, Sense and Sensibility, themes | 2 Comments

The Characterization of Elinor Dashwood in Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility”

Posted on March 23, 2022 by Regina Jeffers

Illustrated Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen book www.etsy.com

Illustrated Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen book http://www.etsy.com

Austen began writing Elinor and Marianne as an epistolary novel in 1795. It was published as Sense and Sensibility in 1811. The novel set the tone for many of Austen’s titles: defiance of the social and economic barriers to marriage and the desire of women to marry for love. In the novel, Elinor and Marianne possess parallel experiences: They both fall in love with men who cannot commit to them. Needless to say, Elinor Dashwood epitomizes the concept of “sense” in her dealings with with the world, while her sister Marianne models the concept of “sensibility.” In the novel, Elinor displays reason and propriety, while Marianne purports spontaneity, self indulgence, and a lack of decorum.

One thing that is often confused by the modern reader is the contextual meaning of “sensibility” during Jane Austen’s time. “Sensibility” was a 15th Century word. Instead of meaning “an understanding of or ability to decide about what is good or valuable,” as we use it today, the word took on the meaning of a “peculiar susceptibility to a pleasurable or painful impression” or “refined or excessive sensitiveness in emotion and taste with especial responsiveness to the pathetic.” (Merriam-Webster)

Austen’s novels criticized the novels of sensibility of the late 1700s. “The sentimental novel or the novel of sensibility is an 18th-century literary genre which celebrates the emotional and intellectual concepts of sentiment, sentimentalism, and sensibility. Sentimentalism, which is to be distinguished from sensibility, was a fashion in both poetry and prose fiction beginning in the eighteenth century in reaction to the rationalism of the Augustan Age.

Austen wrote her novel at the turn of the 19th Century between what is known as Classicism and Romanticism. Austen was always aware of those who came before her, and she acknowledges the 18th Century novels she read voraciously as having a distinct influence on her generation. The novel reflects the change in the literary landscape with the turn of the 19th Century. Austen does not draw the characters of Marianne and Elinor in straight lines. Elinor expresses reserve, but she has her passionate moments. Marianne is headstrong, but not totally lacking in sense. It is as if Austen is arguing for a balance of sense and sensibility in our lives and that being too much of one is an error. Elinor and Marianne learn from each other and achieve happiness in that manner.

“Sentimental novels relied on emotional response, both from their readers and characters. They feature scenes of distress and tenderness, and the plot is arranged to advance emotions rather than action. The result is a valorization of “fine feeling,” displaying the characters as a model for refined, sensitive emotional effect. The ability to display feelings was thought to show character and experience, and to shape social life and relations.” (Wikipedia)

Generally speaking, readers and film adaptations accept Elinor as displaying the acceptable manners of the time. In modern terms, some feel Marianne’s open expression of her feelings is healthier than Elinor’s suppression of emotions. One thing that REALLY drives me nuts in this novel is Elinor remains a static character throughout. As a teacher of English for some four decades, I taught my students that the main character is a dynamic one. It is almost as if Austen provides a bit of overkill of the concept of “sense” in the form of Elinor’s character.

I know many remain interested in Elinor’s struggles to know happiness, but I find myself more concerned with Colonel Brandon’s “stuffiness.” When I first read the book (long after I read Pride and Prejudice), I was as irritated as Marianne with Elinor’s evaluation of Edward Ferrars.

Sense and Sensibility (2008 miniseries) –
en.wikipedia.org

“What a pity it is, Elinor”, said Marianne, “that Edward should have no taste for drawing.”

“No taste for drawing,” replied Elinor; “why should you think so? He does not draw himself, indeed, but he has great pleasure in seeing the performance of other people, and I assure you he is by no means deficient in natural taste, though he has not had opportunities of improving it. Had he ever been in the way of learning, I think he would have drawn very well. He distrusts his own judgment in such matters so much, that he is always unwilling to give his opinion on any picture; but he has an innate propriety and simplicity of taste, which in general direct him perfectly right.”

Marianne was afraid of offending, and said no more on the subject; but the kind of approbation which Elinor described as excited in him by the drawings of other people, was very far from that rapturous delight, which, in her opinion, could alone be called taste. Yet, though smiling within herself at the mistake, she honoured her sister for that blind partiality to Edward which produced it.

“I hope, Marianne,” continued Elinor, “you do not consider him as deficient in general taste. Indeed, I think I may say that you cannot, for your behaviour to him is perfectly cordial, and if that were your opinion, I am sure you could never be civil to him.”

Marianne hardly knew what to say. She would not wound the feelings of her sister on any account, and yet to say what she did not believe was impossible. At length she replied —

“Do not be offended, Elinor, if my praise of him is not in everything equal to your sense of his merits. I have not had so many opportunities of estimating the minuter propensities of his mind, his inclinations and tastes as you have; but I have the highest opinion in the world of his goodness and sense. I think him everything that is worthy and amiable.”

“I am sure,” replied Elinor with a smile, “that his dearest friends could not be dissatisfied with such commendation as that. I do not perceive how you could express yourself more warmly.”

Marianne was rejoiced to find her sister so easily pleased.

“Of his sense and his goodness,” continued Elinor, “no one can, I think, be in doubt, who has seen him often enough to engage him in unreserved conversation. The excellence of his understanding and his principles can be concealed only by that shyness which too often keeps him silent. You know enough of him to do justice to his solid worth. But of his minuter propensities, as you call them, you have from peculiar circumstances been kept more ignorant than myself. He and I have been at times thrown a good deal together, while you have been wholly engrossed on the most affectionate principle by my mother. I have seen a great deal of him, have studied his sentiments and heard his opinion on subjects of literature and taste; and, upon the whole, I venture to pronounce that his mind is well-informed, his enjoyment of books exceedingly great, his imagination lively, his observation just and correct, and his taste delicate and pure. His abilities in every respect improve as much upon acquaintance as his manners and person. At first sight, his address is certainly not striking; and his person can hardly be called handsome, till the expression of his eyes, which are uncommonly good, and the general sweetness of his countenance, is perceived. At present, I know him so well, that I think him really handsome; or, at least, almost so. What say you, Marianne?”

“I shall very soon think him handsome, Elinor, if I do not now. When you tell me to love him as a brother, I shall no more see imperfection in his face, than I now do in his heart.”

Elinor started at this declaration, and was sorry for the warmth she had been betrayed into, in speaking of him. She felt that Edward stood very high in her opinion. She believed the regard to be mutual; but she required greater certainty of it to make Marianne’s conviction of their attachment agreeable to her. She knew that what Marianne and her mother conjectured one moment, they believed the next — that with them, to wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect. She tried to explain the real state of the case to her sister.

“I do not attempt to deny,” said she, “that I think very highly of him — that I greatly esteem, that I like him.”

Marianne here burst forth with indignation —

“Esteem him! Like him! Cold-hearted Elinor! Oh! worse than cold-hearted! Ashamed of being otherwise. Use those words again and I will leave the room this moment.” Elinor could not help laughing.

There is a bit of Elizabeth Bennet in this passage. Elinor does not admit to be in love with Edward; she also does not permit herself to think she is in love with anyone. Edward is equally as reserved as is Elinor. Being reserved in nature is a subject Austen returns to in Emma. What the reader discovers is the “reserved” displayed by Elinor and Edward and by Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill is not real.

Despite her vow not to love a man who does not love her in return, Elinor convinces herself that the ring he wears contains a lock of her hair. She does not openly mourn Edward’s loss, but she does think upon him often.

Lucy Steele’s revelation that Lucy and Edward are engaged is enough to shake Elinor from her delusions of marriage to Edward. Elinor is wise enough to see through Lucy’s manipulations. Elinor continues to hide her feelings for Edward from all, especially Lucy, who would celebrate Elinor’s hopes being dashed.

Unlike Marianne who openly flaunts her interest in John Willoughby by writing the man letters, Elinor hides her disappointment and devotes her attentions to Marianne’s misery.

Marianne chastises Elinor for the expectation of Marianne’s “sense.” Marianne claims her own despair superior to anything Elinor might feel for Edward’s betrayal. “Always resignation and acceptance! Always prudence and honor and duty! Elinor, where is your heart?”

Posted in British history, Great Britain, Jane Austen, Living in the Regency, real life tales, Regency era | Tagged Classicism, Edward Ferrars, Elinor Dashwood, Jane Austen, love, Marianne Dashwood, Romantic period, Romanticism, sense, Sense and Sensibility, sensibility, Sentimental novels | 6 Comments

To Describe the Aristocracy During the Regency, Would One Use the “Ton,” the “Bon Ton” or Something Else?

Posted on March 18, 2022 by Regina Jeffers

Le bon ton is a French phrase meaning “the good style” or “good form.” So one could be part of the ton, if one had the style for it, which is why Beau Brummell could be a leader of fashion and society despite not having much of a background. All of which is very ironic for Brummel was born into the “middle class.”

“[George Bryan Brummell] Brummell was born in London, the younger son of William Brummell, a politician, of Donnington Grove in Berkshire. The family was middle class, but the elder Brummell was ambitious for his son to become a gentleman, and young George was raised with that understanding. Brummell was educated at Eton and made his precocious mark on fashion when he not only modernised the white stock, or cravat, that was the mark of the Eton boy, but added a gold buckle to it He progressed to Oxford University, where, by his own example, he made cotton stockings and dingy cravats a thing of the past. He left the university after only a year, at the age of sixteen.” [John, Doran (1857), Miscellaneous Works, Volume I: Habits and Men, Beau Brummell, Great Britain: Richard Bentley, p. 379.]

Brummell would not have had the influence he possessed if he had not been a member of the Prince of Wales’s inner circle and taken up by the Whigs. Though Brummell’s downfall is said to have started from his bad ton of arguing with, and then insulting, the Prince Regent, the timing also coincides with the Whigs’s disenchantment with the Regent and the switching of sides by many on many issues.

“Unfortunately, Brummell‘s wealthy friends had a less than satisfactory influence on him; he began spending and gambling as though his fortune were as ample as theirs. Such liberal outlay began to deplete his capital rapidly, and he found it increasingly difficult to maintain his lifestyle, although his prominent position in society still allowed him to float a line of credit. This changed in July 1813, at a masquerade ball jointly hosted at Watier’s private club by Brummell, Lord Alvanley, Henry Mildmay, and Henry Pierrepoint. The four were considered the prime movers of Watier’s, dubbed ‘the Dandy Club’ by Byron. The Prince Regent greeted Alvanley and Pierrepoint at the event, and then ‘cut’ Brummell and Mildmay by staring at their faces without speaking. This provoked Brummell’s remark, ‘Alvanley, who’s your fat friend?’. The incident marked the final breach in a rift between Brummell and the Regent that had opened in 1811, when the Prince became Regent and began abandoning all his old Whig friends. Ordinarily, the loss of royal favour to a favourite meant social doom, but Brummell ran as much on the approval and friendship of other leaders of fashionable circles. He became the anomaly of a favourite flourishing without a patron, still influencing fashion and courted by a large segment of society.”

While the Prince and the Whigs were aligned, the Whigs castigated Princess Caroline. However, when the Whigs discovered the Prince had gone back on his promise to them, they started supporting Caroline, and the Tories, who had previously supported her, now turned their backs on her. Politics had much more to do with things than we might have realized prior.

Consequently, the ton might be expanded to include the “upper ten thousand,” not just the upper four hundred. And whether they liked it or not, a duke might have been poor ton, while a mere mister might have been le bon ton, as in with the Beau, who had no title.

Most naturally, money spoke loudly among the aristocratic class, but if one had little or no sense of style and good form, he might be shunned. Likewise, a title was important, but if it were dripping in scandal or if the title holders possessed poor manners, Society might well turn its back on the person.

It might then be supposed, based on what we have in tact from the day, such as women’s magazines, the Ton were aristocrats and upper level gentry who attended the London Season and the Little Season. This group worked rather like the A list of celebrities we now follow. To be on the “list,” one must possess certain family connections, be wealthy, own land, and appear untouched by trade or needing to earn a living. Young ladies who were presented to the Court were A list, while those who were not presented, but otherwise met the criteria to be invited to Almack’s were the B list, etc.

Keeping this in mind, “the ton” then becomes more of a descriptor for those with excellent taste in manner and fashion, rather than the whole of the aristocracy in the Regency period. Some believe, and I am among those believers, that it was Georgette Heyer who first called the whole of the aristocracy the ton.

However, none of these examples seem to be what the group called themselves. Most of the comments are not really complimentary. Some would be applicable to the dandy set, the fops, and the careless youth or the late Georgian equivalent to “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” Then others were addressed to those referred to as bluestockings, the demi-monde, rakes, etc.

The lovely Candice Hern has a whole list of “slang terms” on her website. For example, do you know what an “ape leader” might be? “An old maid or spinster. An old English adage said that a spinster’s punishment after death, for failing to procreate, would be to lead apes in hell.”

A “cicisbeo” is a married woman’s gallant, usually a platonic admirer.

A “cit” was a contemptuous term for a member of the merchant class, one works or lives in the City of London.

“High in the instep” means the person is arrogant; snobbish; overly proud, and very much aware of social rank.

A “hoyden” is a girl who is boisterous, carefree, or tomboyish in her behavior. Etc.

The point is the ton were quick to label and to call others out in order to hide their own foibles.

I think the members of the upper two or ten thousand were just as likely to use “our sort,” as it would be the ton. When speaking of the middle and lower classes, it was always in terms indicating “those people” should respect their betters. Most assuredly, it was assumed that only the members of the upper class could be considered well bred and possessing good taste.

It seems to me, the ton also held a real connotation for folks involved in the fashionable world, in London, in Society—people who were active and connected and “accomplishing” something of importance to them. It seems to me that there was not as strict a divide as a hundred years before (or even fifty) between the “country bumpkin” type (the country gentry who never went to London, or if they did, drew laughter through not knowing the current dress, etiquette, and dance styles) and the “London fashionables. Perhaps this change was due to improved transportation, and people more inclined to travel to Bath or Brighton or Ramsgate or other watering holes and sea side destinations. However, I firmly believe there was still a distinction. You might prefer your daughter to marry a wealthy country gentleman than a fashionable younger son, but if you did not have a daughter to marry off, you might rather have the latter at your dinner party. And, most certainly, you would far rather your daughter marry a wealthy gentleman with ties and connections and friends at court and among the royals. People advanced and grew richer through connections more than anything else at this time.

Examples from Austen’s Pride and Prejudice …

“My dear Mr. Bennet,” said his lady to him one day, “have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?”
Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.
“But it is,” returned she; “for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it.”
Mr. Bennet made no answer.
“Do not you want to know who has taken it?” cried his wife impatiently.
“You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.”
This was invitation enough.
“Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week.”
“What is his name?”
“Bingley.”
“Is he married or single?”
“Oh! single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!”

******************************

Mr. Bingley was good looking and gentlemanlike; he had a pleasant countenance, and easy, unaffected manners. His brother-in-law, Mr. Hurst, merely looked the gentleman; but his friend Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien; and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year. The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend.

Mr. Bingley had soon made himself acquainted with all the principal people in the room; he was lively and unreserved, danced every dance, was angry that the ball closed so early, and talked of giving one himself at Netherfield. Such amiable qualities must speak for themselves. What a contrast between him and his friend! Mr. Darcy danced only once with Mrs. Hurst and once with Miss Bingley, declined being introduced to any other lady, and spent the rest of the evening in walking about the room, speaking occasionally to one of his own party. His character was decided. He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and every body hoped that he would never come there again. Amongst the most violent against him was Mrs. Bennet, whose dislike of his general behaviour was sharpened into particular resentment by his having slighted one of her daughters.

James Gillray: Following the Fashion (1796) https://drawpaintprint.tumblr.com/post/33290213714/james-gillray-following-the-fashion-1796

For those of you interested in this topic…

A quick glance through a few of my reference books revealed there are also publications that use bon ton as a descriptor in their titles. The New Bon Ton Magazine (Telescope of the Times) that was published from 1818-1821.

Slang: A Dictionary of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, the Pit, of Bon Ton and the Varieties of Life by John Bee in 1823.

Playwright David Garrick’s comedy Bon Ton; or High Life Above Stairs was performed at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on March 18, 1775.

The Cambridge Companion to British Theatre 1730-1830 documents dramatist Hannah Cowley referencing the bon ton society. See The Celebrated Hannah Cowley by Angela Escott.

How to Pronounce the Word “Ton” in Reference to the Upper Class in Regency England?

What is the “Haut Ton”? What is the “Haut Ton”?

Who Were the “Ton” and the “Beau Monde”?

Posted in British history, customs and tradiitons, Georgian England, Georgian Era, Living in the Regency, Living in the UK, political stance, Pride and Prejudice, Regency era, Regency personalities, titles of aristocracy, Uncategorized | Tagged aristocracy, Beau Brummell, manners, the "ton, the Prince Regent, the Tories, the Whigs | Comments Off

Jane Austen and the Brontës: Tory Daughters (an Overview)

Posted on March 16, 2022 by Regina Jeffers

Recently, I was asked by a local teacher to speak to her English class after the students had read Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights. Below, you will find my notes for a comparison/contrast between the Brontës and Austen. As I have been out of the public classroom for several years, I did a bit of brushing up before opening myself up to lots of questions from these students.

(Many of the key points below come from “Tory Daughters: Jane Austen and the Brontës,” from Patrick Parrinder’s Nation and Novel, 512 pages, Oxford University Press, November 15, 2008. This book is a fabulous resource, which I would highly recommend to others.)

(These notes are in no particular order.)

Introduction to the early 1800s:
• Fictional romance requires that the young lovers defy social norms, but the novels of Austen’s contemporaries, such as Maria Edgeworth (I am currently reading “Castle Rackrent.”) reflect specific anxieties about marriage in the early 19th Century. For example, in “Castle Rackrent,” Edgeworth seems to be reconstructing an heir worthy of Irish legitimacy. As a female writer, Edgeworth appears to be fortifying the system of primogeniture, which separated women from access to property.
• The idea of a companionate marriage became increasingly dominant in the early 1800s. Austen’s novels did much to propagate this middle-class idea.
• Advocating love matches and companionate marriages in novels also held a symbolic element. Each new alliance represents a further weakening of the dynastic line.
• A common complaint of Austen’s novels is her heroines marry for love. What the critic is missing is that the marriage can also hold political and social significance. Women can be active agents of cultural change. (See my posts on endogamous and exogamous marriages.)
• In a time when divorce was expensive and required Parliamentary approval, selfish and short-sighted family interests being set against the wider social interests that the lovers embody demonstrates the novelist implicit or explicit prejudices.
• Up until the Victorian period, the politics of marriage in English fiction reflected the social norms of the aristocracy and gentry. The narrative often frames and marks as “foreign” the literary conventions of sensibility.
• The importance to the landed estate is England’s future is an element of the stories. The concept of primogeniture is reinforced.
• The English ‘Jacobin’ novelists of the 1790s (such as Charlotte Smith, Thomas Holcroft, and Robert Bage) produced parables of a reformed aristocracy rather than visions of an aristocracy overthrown by the people. Their novels tend to suggest that an enlightened aristocracy could still form the backbone of the English nation. Rarely do these narratives endorse any single, self-identical political future.
• The Church was a vocation open to the younger sons of the landed gentry. Members of the clergy were Oxford or Cambridge graduates.
• A clergyman’s life was associated with genteel poverty and a lack of ruling-class privilege.
• A clergyman’s daughters were so pressed to marry. Austen remained unmarried, while Charlotte Brontë eventually married the Reverend Arthur Nicholls.
• The English “courtship novel” appealed to female writers and readers.They reflected the tension between the traditional definition of womanhood in terms of the marriage mart, and women’s demand for moral independence and self-respect. Female-authored novels of the period made an attempt to frame sentiment as an outmoded, if still dangerously attractive structure of feeling.
• The heroines of courtship novels are outside the charmed circle from which aristocratic brides are chosen. They have no obvious dynastic responsibilities, and the marital expectations that have been formed about them are the vaguest.
• These heroines are relatively free and are conscious of their freedom; and coming from staunch Protestant backgrounds, they possess a moral conscience and a desire to take personal responsibility for their own lives. The movement between literature and history forms a transition between private and public meanings.
• The aim of the fictional plot in the courtship novel is not simply to portray the heroine’s growth towards self-fulfillment and a settled happiness. The happy ending translates her moral assets into material ones, suggesting that – in fiction, at least – virtue has its earthly reward.
• The Happily Ever After of the courtship plot rewards the most morally deserving pair of lovers while thwarting all rival claimants. The allegories of love and marriage are not only subject to particular forms of narrative inscription that ultimately determine their meanings but also deeply embedded with a political moment that demands closer attention.
• The politics of the HEA ending depends upon its relationship to the conventional hierarchy of wealth and breeding. Most often, the established social power is unexpectedly reaffirmed while the aristocracy is revitalized by an infusion of social responsibility and Christian virtue (the typical dowry of clergyman’s daughter).
• The courtship novels lead us through romantic complications, intricate false alarms, and delicate misunderstandings to an endorsement of Tory England.

Jane Austen:
• Resided at Steventon Rectory
• She came from a solidly genteel background and was strongly anti-Jacobin.
• Her characters are far more ill at ease in fashionable society than those of the Jacobin novelists, whose politics she so disliked.
• The Jacobins remembered the anti-Royalist origins of the Whig party and dreamed of an alliance between radicals and reformed Whig aristocrats.
• For Austen, however, the 18th Century diversion between the Tory country gentry and the ruling Whig aristocracy was a deeply personal matter.
• Austen has been described as the “Tory daughter of a quiet Tory parson” and her novels as “Tory pastorals.”
• Although party names never appear in Austen’s fiction, the stinging portrayal of an aristocratic grande dame, such as Lady Catherine de Bourgh, implicitly involves party politics.
• Austen’s outspokenly Royalist teenage History of England, admittedly a burlesque, reveals the strong political opinions, which later mellowed into her family’s moderate Toryism.
• A Church of England parson held a duty to support the monarchy and the ruling class and to preach patriotism and social obedience to his flock.
• Patriotism accompanied paternalism. The parson also held the role of “spiritual father” to his flock.
• In Austen’s novels, it can be argued “the significance of marriage as a relationship between individuals…is always subordinate to its significance as a relationship between families.
• Austen’s characters are strongly individualized and are not carried away by the anarchy of romantic love.
• There is an important variation in Austen’s marriage plots, some of which are endogamous – as in Edmund Bertram’s union with his cousin Fanny – and some exogamous. Endogamous marriage implies the purification and consolidation of a house, a dynasty, or a community. It is a defensive, protective measure. Exogamous marriage is a union of opposites – political, social, and temperamental – injecting new blood into one of the nation’s old or ruling families.
• The culminating marriages in Austen’s fictions are socially and economically far more advantageous to the heroine than the hero. Moreover, exogamous marriage is fraught with danger in her novels.
• To marry openly for economic advantage (as with Charlotte Lucas in Pride and Prejudice) is to invite the novelist’s scorn.
• Those who marry beneath them in essentials are set for misery (such as Mr. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice and Sir Thomas Bertram in Mansfield Park).
• Austen’s heroines must resist easy captivation and must appear to disregard material considerations so their ability to contract a wealthy marriage becomes a tribute to their integrity alone. The heroine who rejects the handsome cavalier or bounder in favor of the unbending man of virtue (or prig) is set to fulfill her destiny.
• Her “cavaliers” are characterized by vacillation, self-contradiction, and inconsistency. They are all “Beta” males.
• Ironically, Austen uses many “Whig” names in her stories: Wentworth, Woodhouse, Watson, Bertram, Brandon, Churchill, Dashwood, D’Arcy, Fitzwilliam, Russell, and Steele.
• A self-imposed limitation of Austen’s novels is she only “hints” at social change.

Charlotte Brontë:
• Resided at Haworth Parsonage
• The Brontë sisters were daughters of an Irish father and a Cornish mother, who idolized the Anglo-Irish Duke of Wellington, the victor of Waterloo and, eventually, a Tory prime minister.
• Wellington and his brothers are the central figures of the fantasy world of the Class Town (later Angria) created by Charlotte and her brother Bramwell in their youth.
• At the age of 13, Charlotte copied out Walter Scott’s tribute to Wellington in his Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, adding the following exclamation: “If he saved England in that hour of tremendous perils, shall he not save her again?”
• The Victorian critic Leslie Stephen saw Charlotte Brontë as a typical example of the ‘patriotism of the steeple.’
• Charlotte thought of herself as the antithesis of Austen.
• Charlotte, for all her sympathy with oppressed woman, was a political conservative and an ardent admirer of Walter Scott.
• Her novels are “a marriage of identifiably bourgeois values with the values of the gentry or aristocracy – a figurative political marriage.”
• Jane Eyre’s whole life is determined, as we gradually realize, by a series of rash and impolitic marriages in preceding generations.
• At every stage of the novel, the young Jane is the chosen pilgrim following a predestined path, while her imagination continues to construct fictional versions of herself; her true identity is gradually revealed.
• In Jane Eyre, we see a Victorian “English-ist” in the characters. Those outside of England (Rochester’s French mistress, the Francophile Whig aristocracy represented by Blanche Ingram, etc.) set against the superiority of the English (Jane Eyre).
• The deepening love between Jane and Rochester is one of the English novel’s crowning examples of an exogamous sexual romance based on the attraction of social and historical opposites.
• Jane Eyre escapes from Rochester only to find herself being endogamously courted by St John Rivers, the country vicar and Puritan saint, who is her cousin.
• Where Rochester would have lured her into a bigamous marriage, Rivers proposes a mere marriage of convenience, not a love match or a union likely to lead to offspring.
• Rochester’s marriage to Bertha Mason was intended to carry colonial wealth back to England, while Rivers plans to export evangelical spirituality to India and tells Jane it is her duty to assist him.
• What Jane detects in Rivers is the self-mortifying patriotism of the new breed of British imperialists.
• Their life at Ferndean is one of repatriation and restoration.
• Rochester’s blindness is the blindness of Samson, but Jane’s arrival at Ferndean puts him back into familiar English hands.

Emily Brontë:
• Wuthering Heights is understood as a provincial novel, portraying violent and brutal extremes of behavior and set in a wildly romantic landscape.
• The primitiveness of the Yorkshire moors is registered through the eyes of the southern-bred Lockwood.
• The novel’s confined topography is in sharp contrast to the cosmopolitan settings and incessant journeyings of the Gothic and Jacobin fiction to which it is indebted.
• Brontë balances the Gothic material in WH against a tale of courtship and domestic passion.
• The striking two-part structure, with bitter conflict in the first generation and gradual reconciliation in the second, had been anticipated in at least one earlier courtship novel, A Simple Story (1791) by Elizabeth Inchbald, the author of the English version of Kotzebue’s Lovers’ Vows, which was performed as part of the story of Austen’s Mansfield Park.
• In Wuthering Heights, provincial Puritanism to some extent takes the place of A Simple Story’s high bred Catholic spirituality.
• The Puritanical sermons of Joseph and Jabes Branderham set a devotional context for the love story.
• Catherine’s admitting her love for Heathcliff is a kind of neo-paganism or romantic nature worship. Her words are a poetic metaphor rather than inspired truths, and are deeply false.
• Catherine is portrayed as cruel and self-destructive as is her brother Hindley.
• Heathcliff is the Holy Ghost whom Joseph and Branderham wished to see excommunicated. This means the romantic passion of Catherine and Heathcliff is not a bond between external soul-mates, but a union of opposites, a Puritan-Cavalier love tragedy in which the vengeful Puritan outcast attempts to drag his former lover down to destruction.
• The more Catherine accepts the namby-pamby lifestyle into which she has married, the more Heathcliff accepts his demonic role of eternal excommunication.
• Heathcliff’s elaborate plan of revenge cannot prevent a growing alliance between the Earnshaws (remnants of the old yeoman class of independent farmers) and the Lintons (genteel land owners).
• Heathcliff’s death sums up the novel’s themes of dynastic succession, sin and punishment, excommunication, and devil-worship. He has made arrangements for an un-Christian burial.

Similarities/Differences:
• Their novels reflect their authors’ rural and Anglican backgrounds and their concern with patriotism, paternalism, pastoralism, and the moral accountability of the individual.
• Patriotism is a stronger emotion in Austen and Brontë than in most English women novelists before or since.

Posted in Jane Austen, literature | Tagged British history, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Georgian Era, Jane Austen, Regency Era | Comments Off

“Obstinate, Headstrong Girl,” Introducing “Austens of Broadford,” a Guest Post and Chapter Excerpt from Carole Penfield

Posted on March 14, 2022 by Regina Jeffers

A life lesson universally acknowledged is that when you marry someone, you marry into their entire family. Not infrequently, some family member may act to interfere with the happiness of a couple during their courtship. Such was the case for Lizzy Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy, in Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice.

No sooner does his aunt Lady Catherine deBourgh hear of the growing attachment between her nephew and Lizzy, than she shows up unannounced at Longbourn with every intention of breaking off the possibility of an engagement between them. Announcing she is “not to be trifled with,” she accuses Lizzy of using her “arts and allurement” to draw him in. She insults Lizzy for being socially inferior through her family relations. When Lizzy refuses to promise that she would turn down a proposal from Mr. Darcy, Lady Catherine calls her “obstinate, headstrong girl” and accuses her of being unfeeling and selfish.

Despite being “most seriously displeased,” Lady Catherine’s efforts to prevent the engagement are in vain. As Darcy later tells Lizzy, “Lady Catherine’s unjustifiable endeavours to separate us were the means of removing all my doubts.” He sends off a letter to his aunt, confirming his engagement.

The Bennet relatives also cause uncomfortable feelings for the couple during their courtship. Being in the society of “vulgar” Aunt and Uncle Phillips takes “some pleasure from the season.” Lizzy looks forward with delight (and probably great relief) to the time they should be removed to the comfort of Pemberley in Derbyshire. Even easy-going Charles Bingley and his wife Jane cannot long abide living near the Bennet relations; after one year of marriage, they leave Netherfield and move to Derbyshire.

At least Pemberley was far enough removed from Meryton and Rosings to prevent frequent social intercourse with unpleasant, interfering family relatives. Things were much worse for Jane Austen’s great-grandmother, Eliza Weller Austen, forced to live in the same neighbourhood as her curmudgeonly father-in-law who was opposed to the marriage. Much like Lady Catherine, old man Austen tried to prevent the couple from marrying by grossly insulting Eliza during their first meeting. After the marriage went forward, he continued to be a constant thorn in her side.

Austens of Broadford—The Midwife Chronicles, Book Three

My fictionalized biography of Eliza Weller Austen is based in part, on her handwritten memorandum setting forth her grievances against her father-in-law. This document was passed down through the Austen family for generations, where it was undoubtedly read by young Jane and may have influenced her when she created the character of Lady Catherine. In the following excerpt, Eliza (who has been married to John Austen IV for eight years) bemoans the ongoing mistreatment by her father-in-law to her best friend Lucina.

Excerpt

Lucina hated to see her friend in distress. “I think the signs were there even before you two were wed. I will never forget the day the old man insisted you come to Horsmonden, to ‘look you over’ before consenting to your marriage. You were frightened and asked me to accompany you.”

“I remember,” she said softly.

* * *

It had been a sultry August day. After admitting them to Grovehurst, Mr. Austen’s housekeeper ushered them into his study, where they were kept waiting for a quarter of an hour. The two thirsty ladies were not even offered a cold drink. Finally, the old man appeared. They stood and curtsied to him. Lucina was ignored, as he glared at Eliza.

“So, Miss Weller, you are betrothed to my son,” he stated without smiling.

“Yes, sir. John and I are deeply in love, and alike in our desire to be wed as soon as possible.”

“Hmph! He replied, scanning her from head to toe.

Eliza looked perplexed, although Lucina surmised that he was searching for signs of a swollen belly.

“Have you a substantial dowry?” he demanded of Eliza.

“As much as my father can afford, having several daughters.”

“I’ve made inquiries. To be sure, it is not a vast sum. At least I am able to provide a marital abode for my son. It is close by.”

“John told me you were indeed fortunate to inherit not one, but two spacious houses from a childless uncle,” said Eliza brightly. “Grovehurst and Broadford, both former clothmaster halls.”

He leaned forward in his chair and pointed his finger at her. “Aha. So, you already know the Austen fortune arose from weaving of Kentish broadcloth.”

“Yes, sire. One of my Weller ancestors was also a clothier.”

He smirked. “Not nearly as successful as the Austen Greycoats, who wisely invested their profits in rental properties and farmland when the manufacture of cloth began to wane.” His sharp eyes bored into her again. “Stand up,” he suddenly barked, waving his right hand at her in a circular manner. “Turn around so I can have a better look at you.”

Lucina tried to stop her friend from submitting to inspection. “Don’t,” she whispered in Eliza’s ear. “You are not a mare for sale.” But Eliza complied, trying to win his favour. She was no great beauty, but her overall appearance was not unsatisfactory. Turning around gracefully, she allowed him to gaze on her before smoothing her skirt and returning to her seat.

“As you well understand, Miss Weller, my son is sole heir to the Austen fortune,” said Mr. Austen. “He must have a male heir. A legitimate one, born on the right side of the sheets.”

“Sir—” began Eliza, bewildered by his insinuation.

He spoke very directly. “Missy, I need to know. Have you already enticed my son into your bed?”

“No, sir!”

He sat forward and wagged his finger at her. “Are you intact?”

Lucina stood up and said, “Eliza, let us leave now. You need not sit here and be showered with further insults.” But Eliza pulled her friend back down onto the settee.

“I assure you, sir, that I respect your desire to protect your son and the fortune your family has amassed,” she said with an air of defiance. “My reputation as the daughter of a gentleman is unblemished.”

“Humph, I know your father. Together, we shall have to arrange the terms of the marriage settlement, albeit my input shall take precedence. My son turned down a golden opportunity to . . . well, that is water under the bridge. He has apparently fallen under your spell and there is not much I can do to stop him. John acts on his desires without forethought.” With that, he arose to leave the room, then paused to add: “I do not wish you or your insolent friend well.”

Eliza had wept bitter tears during the ride back to Tunbridge. Nonetheless, she had been determined not to break off her engagement. She would prove to Master Austen that she could be a good wife and mother. His assessment of her was unjust.

Chapter Six, Pages 54-57

~ ~ ~

About Carole Penfield

I am a retired attorney, turned novelist. I live in Northern Arizona with my husband Perry Krowne and two overly friendly cats. The Midwife Chronicles series was released in December 2021; all three books are available on Amazon in paperback and eBook format. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1737807904

This trilogy follows the continuing saga of the Dupres midwives, who are forced to flee France for England in Book One, Midwife of Normandy. They are befriended by the Austens of Kent and find their lives intertwined in Book Two, Lucina’s Destiny. The close friendship between Lucina Dupres and Jane Austens’ remarkable, real-life great-grandmother Eliza Weller Austen which begins in Book Two, is more fully developed inBook Three, Austens of Broadford. Although each of these novels can be read as “standalones,” reading the series in order is highly recommended. To learn more, please visit my website https://www.carolepenfield.com Customer reviews on Amazon or Goodreads are greatly appreciated!

Posted in book excerpts, book release, books, British history, England, Georgian England, Georgian Era, Guest Post, history, Jane Austen | Tagged Austens of Broadford, book excerpt, book release, British history, Carole Penfield, Georgian Era, guest post, Jane Austen, Regency Era | Comments Off

Ben Jonson’s “Song to Celia” ~ The Poem You Did Not Know Was a Song

Posted on March 11, 2022 by Regina Jeffers

One of my favorite love songs comes to us from the poet Ben Jonson. According to Poets.org, “The poet, essayist, and playwright Ben Jonson was born on June 11, 1572 in London, England. In 1598, Jonson wrote what is considered his first great play, Every Man in His Humor. In a 1616 production, William Shakespeare acted in one of the lead roles. Shortly after the play opened, Jonson killed Gabriel Spencer in a duel and was tried for murder. He was released by pleading “benefit of clergy” (i.e., by proving he could read and write in Latin, he was allowed to face a more lenient court). He spent only a few weeks in prison, but shortly after his release he was again arrested for failing to pay an actor.

“Under King James I, Jonson received royal favor and patronage. Over the next fifteen years many of his most famous satirical plays, including Volpone (1606) and The Alchemist(1610), were produced for the London stage. In 1616, he was granted a substantial pension of 100 marks a year, and is often identified as England’s first Poet Laureate. His circle of admirers and friends, who called themselves the “Tribe of Ben,” met regularly at the Mermaid Tavern and later at the Devil’s Head. Among his followers were nobles such as the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle as well as writers including Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, Sir John Suckling, James Howell, and Thomas Carew.”

After March 1616, Ben Jonson took an ancient love letter and turned it into a poem. Ben Jonson’s Song: To Celia” is often identified by its first line: ‘Drink to me only with thine eyes.’ This line is actually simply a word-for-word translation of a line from one of the letters of the 3rd-century Greek author Philostratus. And, the similarities do not stop there. In addition to the Epistles of Philostratus, some experts point to the classical literature of Catullus for the poem’s inspiration.

Study.com tells us, “In fact, many of the sentiments and images Philostratus includes in his erotic love letter are used by Jonson in his ‘Song: To Celia.’ For example, Jonson employs two different allegories in the poem’s two stanzas: one involving wine; the other, roses. This framing structure that Jonson uses closely resembles Philostratus’ closing line, ‘Because, that way, no one is without love like someone still longing for the grace of Dionysus while among the grapevines of Aphrodite.’ Using symbolic representations of the Greek god of wine (Dionysus) and the goddess of love (Aphrodite), Jonson not only repurposes Philostratus’ imagery, but also reflects his predecessor’s sentiment concerning his own sweetheart: no other divine, intoxicating presence (wine/Dionysus) is needed where she is around.”

Song to Celia

Drinke to me, onely, with thine eyes,
    And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kisse but in the cup,
    And Ile not looke for wine.
The thirst, that from the soule doth rise,
    Doth aske a drinke divine:
But might I of Jove’s Nectar sup,
    I would not change for thine.
I sent thee, late, a rosie wreath,
    Not so much honoring thee,
As giving it a hope, that there
    It could not withered bee.
But thou thereon did’st onely breath,
    And sent’st it back to mee:
Since when it growes, and smells, I sweare,
    Not of it selfe, but thee.

Around 1770, the poem became the lyrics of “Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes.”

Wikipedia provides this information: “John Addington Symonds demonstrated in The Academy 16 (1884) that almost every line has its counterpart in “Epistle xxxiii” of the erotic love-letter Epistles of Philostratus. The Athenian. Richard Cumberland had, however, identified the link to “an obscure collection of love-letters” by Philostratus as early as 1791. George Burke Johnston noted that ‘the poem is not a translation, but a synthesis of scattered passages. Although only one conceit is not borrowed from Philostratus, the piece is a unified poem, and its glory is Jonson’s. It has remained alive and popular for over three hundred years, and it is safe to say that no other work by Jonson is so well known.’ Another classical strain in the poem derives from Catullus. In a brief notice J. Gwyn Griffiths noted the similarity of the conceit of perfume given to the rosy wreath in a poem in the Greek Anthology and other classical parallels could be attested, natural enough in a writer of as wide reading as Jonson.

“Willa McClung Evans suggested that Jonson’s lyrics were fitted to a tune already in existence and that the fortunate marriage of words to music accounted in part for its excellence. This seems unlikely since Jonson’s poem was set to an entirely different melody in 1756 by Elizabeth Turner.

Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov/collections/early-american-sheet-music/about-this-collection/

Another conception is that the original composition of the tune was by John Wall Callcott in about 1790 as a glee for two trebles and a bass. It was arranged as a song in the 19th century, apparently by Colonel Mellish (1777-1817). Later arrangements include those by Granville Bantock and Roger Quilter. Quilter’s setting was included in the Arnold Book of Old Songs, published in 1950.” Some think the song was created by Mozart, but there is no evidence to that fact. As to Colonel Mellish being the composer of the music, that is unlikely as he is believed to have been born in 1777. Grattan Flood asserted that he had seen an edition of the song dating from about 1803 with Henry Herrington of Bath (1727-1816).

http://www.gettyimages.ie/photos/thine-eyes?excludenudity=true&sort=mostpopular&mediatype=photography&phrase=thine%20eyes

Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes

Drink to me only with thine eyes
And I will pledge with mine.
Or leave a kiss within the cup
And I’ll not ask for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove’s nectar sip,
I would not change for thine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much hon’ring thee
As giving it a hope that there
It could not withered be;
But thou thereon did’st only breathe,
And sent’st it back to me,
Since when it grows and smells, I swear
Not of itself, but thee.

Listen to Versions of “Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes” on You Tube by going HERE.

Posted in British history, literature, love quotes, music, Uncategorized | Tagged Ben Jonson, British history, Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes, music, Song of Celia | 4 Comments

Major General Adam Stephen, Real-Life Model for Doctor Spurlock in My Tale, “Captain Stanwick’s Bride”

Posted on March 9, 2022 by Regina Jeffers

In my tale “Captain Stanwick’s Bride,” I based Elizabeth Spurlock on my own 8th great-grandmother, a Powhatan Indian Princess. But where did I find the inspiration for the lady’s husband? Easy enough to answer.

I am from West Virginia originally, and I have completed substantial research on soldiers in the different wars in which the United States participated, who came from West Virginia, or in this case the western part of Virginia, which became a new state in June 1863.

Major General Adam Stephen (1718-1791) was, like my character in Captain Stanwick’s Bride, a Scottish-born American doctor, who earned a degree at King’s College in Aberdeen and studied medicine in Edinburgh. Stephen later married and had one child, a daughter named Ann. In my book the daughter’s name is Beatrice.

Stephen entered the Royal Navy’s service on a hospital ship before emigrating to the British colony of Virginia in the late 1730s or early 1740s. He sat up his practice in Fredericksburg. His first military service came as part of the Province of Virginia’s militia, where he was a senior captain in Colonel Joshua Fry’s regiment, during the French and Indian War. He became a lieutenant colonel of the Virginia Regiment under George Washington. The regiment was based east of the Appalachian Mountains, near Winchester, the county seat of Frederick County. The regiment fought Native Americans at Jumonville Glen, and Fort Necessity, which is considered the opening engagements of the French and Indian War.

He was with Washington at Great Meadows and served with Washington during the disastrous Braddock Expedition, where he was severely wounded. Thankfully, he recovered, again commanding the Virginia regiment against the Creeks to assist South Carolinians (1756). By 1759, Stephen was in command of at Fort Bedford (on the west side of the Appalachian range near the South Branch of the Potomac River) and begged for cattle to be delivered to Fort Pitt (the future Pittsburgh).

Braddock, Edward Lithograph depicting the mortally wounded Edward Braddock being carried from the field after a battle near Fort Duquesne, 1755.
SOTK2011/Alamy ~ https://www.britannica.com/event/French-and-Indian-War

Stephen received the cattle and other goods necessary to organize and fund the Timberlake Expedition, which attempted to reconcile British and Cherokee interests following the Anglo-Cherokee War (part of the much broader French and Indian War). In the summer of 1763, settlers complained of raids by Delaware and Shawnees on South Branch settlements; many inhabitants of then-Hampshire County had abandoned their homes, so in August the Governor authorized Col. Stephen to draft 500 men from the militias of Hampshire, Culpeper, Fauquier, Loudoun and Frederick County militias, and the next month told them to continue guarding the posts on the South Branch and Patterson Creek, lest the Native Americans retaliate for their loss that summer at Brushy Run just south of Pittsburgh to British troops commanded by Col. Henry Bouquet. While Captain Charles Lewis escorted 60 former settler prisoners back to Fort Pitt in 1764, Stephen had assumed command of the Virginia Regiment from Washington, and traveled westward to assist in putting down Pontiac’s Rebellion.

In 1772, he became Frederick County, Virginia’s first high sheriff. In Lord Dunmore’s War, he was second in command to the Governor, and at Fort Gower made a speech in favor of the colonial cause.

He led a division of the Continental Army, again serving under Washington, during the American Revolutionary War. He was with the Continental Arm during the New York and New Jersey campaign (1776) and led a defense of Philadelphia in 1777. At the Battle of Germantown (October 1777), Stephen’s men fought in a thick fog against Anthony Wayne. He was accused of being drunk during the battle convicted in a court martial. He was stripped of his command and was cashiered out of the army, but continued to serve his beloved western Virginia, representing Berkeley County in the Virginia General Assembly.

Stephen had lived in western Virginia before the war broke out, and voters from Berkeley County (created in 1772) had elected him as one of their two delegates (alongside Robert Rutherford) to the Second Virginia Revolutionary Convention, which was held at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Richmond between March 20 and March 27, 1775. When the war ended, he returned to Berkeley County (in what long after his death became West Virginia),. In 1778 Stephen laid out the plan for Martinsburg, and named the new town after his friend, Colonel Thomas Bryan Martin. Stephen became sheriff of then-vast Berkeley County, with Martinsburg as the county seat. Generals Horatio Gates and Charles Lee both later purchased property in the county and lived nearby. In 1780, Berkeley county voters elected Stephen as one of their (part-time) representatives in the Virginia House of Delegates. In 1788, Berkeley County voters elected Stephen to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, where he spoke (and voted) in favor of ratification of the Constitution of the United States. Despite opposition by political heavyweights such as Patrick Henry and George Mason, Virginia ratified the Constitution 89 to 79, in large part because western Virginia delegates (including Stephen) supported it 15 to 1.

Stephen died in Martinsburg in 1791and is buried beneath a monument erected in his honor.

**The Adam Stephen House in Martinsburg, West Virginia ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Stephen_House#/media/File:Adam_Stephen_House_WV1.jpg**

The Adam Stephen House in Martinsburg, and The Bower near Shepherdstown (on property he owned in what became Jefferson County, West Virginia), survive today and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Other Sources:

Adam Stephen. Moland House Historic Park.

Adam Stephen (Wikipedia)

Adam Stephen Facts and Biography. The History Junkie.

To George Washington from Major General Adam Stephen, 9 October 1777. Founders Online.

Johnson, Ross B. West Virginians in the American Revolution. Baltimore: Clearfield Publishing, pg. 272.

Leonard, Cynthia Miller (1978). Virginia General Assembly 1619-1978. Richmond: Virginia State Library. pp. 112, 137, 141, 145, 149, 153, 172.

Taaffe, Stephen R. (2019). Washington’s Revolutionary War Generals. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Posted in America, American History, Appalachia, British history, British Navy, West Virginia | Tagged Adam Stephen, American history, American Revolution, Appalachia, British history, French and Indian War, George Washington, war, West Virginia | Comments Off

Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s “Visionary”

Posted on March 2, 2022 by Regina Jeffers

via Wikipedia

To really understand Prince Albert’s role in British history, one must know more of his early life. Albert Francis Charles Augustus Emmanuel of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was born on 26 August 1819 at Schloss Rosenau, in Bavaria, the younger son of the duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Albert’s roots were planted in a small European duchy, which held little influence in the great scheme of international politics until Prince Leopold married George IV’s only child, Princess Charlotte of Wales. Later, Leopold’s sister Victorie married another of George III’s sons, the Duke of Kent. Saxe-Coburg-Gotha’s “insignificance” added to Albert’s growing vision of a relationship between those who govern and those who are governed.

When Albert was four, his mother, Duchess Louise, chose to no longer tolerate her husband’s infidelity. She sought solace in the arms of a young officer in Coburg’s army. Duchess Louise abandoned Albert and his older brother Ernest. When he was seven, Albert’s father, Duke Ernest divorced his mother in absentia on grounds of adultery, and she was sent to live in Switzerland and forbidden to see her children ever again. Duchess Louise died eight years later (1831). The duke remarried, and Albert and his brother developed a healthy relationship with their new stepmother, Princess Marie of Württemberg, who was their cousin.

Albert was an excellent student, possessing an intelligence that proved more ordered than his future wife, Queen Victoria. He was musically talented. He studied ancient and modern history, French, Latin, natural sciences, English, mathematics, etc. He practiced an unvaried schedule throughout his life, but as a youth 6 – 8 A.M. daily was set aside for his deeper studies. Albert was educated at Bonn University.

As Queen Victoria’s consort, Albert “adopted” England’s so-called enlightenment, which was obviously nothing like the enlightenment now practiced within the United Kingdom. Albert openly purported the idea a fair-minded monarch (who did not endorse party politics) should preside over Parliament. As devious as this might sound in light of today’s political posturing on both sides of the ocean, Albert saw his daughters as a means to spread his ideas to the thrones of other countries into which they would marry. His sons’ destinies were prescribed as the children of the queen and the British rule.

Queen Victoria came to appreciate Albert’s many talents and abilities. He began by overseeing the queen’s domestic affairs of their two households. However, during her lying in and delivery of their first child, Victoria permitted Albert to act in her stead on “official” business. She pressed Albert to write memos and instructions to her various ministers, an act Lord Melbourne referred to as “The Prince’s observations.” Albert’s efforts earned him new respect from those involved in the Queen’s business. With his keen insights, Albert managed to place his wife’s position on policies and laws in a kinder light than would likely have been achieved by Victoria herself.

In Victoria’s Daughters (Jerrold M. Packard, St Martin’s, 1998) we learn, “Victoria’s premarital fondness for and dependence on her first prime minister, Lord Melbourne, had been thought a dangerous thing, leading to serious difficulties between the sovereign and Melbourne’s successor when Melbourne lost office. It was Albert who diplomatically, and with unarguable logic, taught his wife that the breaking of ties to any minister had to be faced to prevent constitutional injury to the monarchy. In keeping with the passionate nature of her personality, Victoria soon thereafter came under the almost complete tutelage of her prince. One official would write of Albert as ‘in fact, tho’ not in name, Her Majesty’s Private Secretary.’ Another minister went further, stating that the queen had turned Albert into a virtual ‘King-Consort,’ which had, ironically, been the title she suggested for him when the marriage negotiations first got underway.”

From BBC History, we discover, “Albert’s role as advisor to his wife came into full force after the death of Lord Melbourne, the prime minister, who had exerted a strong paternal influence over Victoria, and Albert began to act as the queen’s private secretary. He encouraged in his wife a greater interest in social welfare and invited Lord Shaftesbury, the driving force behind successive factory acts, to Buckingham Palace to discuss the matter of child labour. His constitutional position was a difficult one, and although he exercised his influence with tact and intelligence, he never enjoyed great public popularity during Victoria’s reign. It wasn’t until 1857 that he was formally recognised by the nation and awarded the title ‘prince consort’.

0119cc4901ff51b148018caa8308abb3d4bbb31d

Prince Albert, 1854 http://www.bbc.co.uk/ history/historic_figures /albert_prince.shtml

“Albert took an active interest in the arts, science, trade and industry. He masterminded the Great Exhibition of 1851, with a view to celebrating the great advances of the British industrial age and the expansion of the empire. He used the profits to help to establish the South Kensington museums complex in London.

“In the autumn of 1861, Albert intervened in a diplomatic row between Britain and the United States and his influence probably helped to avert war between the two countries. When he died suddenly of typhoid on 14 December, Victoria was overwhelmed by grief and remained in mourning until the end of her life. She commissioned a number of monuments in his honour, including the Royal Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens completed in 1876.”

Posted in Act of Parliament, British history, Great Britain, titles of aristocracy, Victorian era | Tagged marriage, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, Saxe-Coburg | 6 Comments

Turmoil in Europe and Queen Victoria’s England

Posted on February 28, 2022 by Regina Jeffers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Karoline_Amalie_of_Hesse-Kassel

Mourning was one of the great constants in Queen Victoria’s life. The Queen and her beloved Albert lost his maternal step grandmother, Princess Karoline Amalie of Hesse-Kassel, in February 1848. In her journal, Queen Victoria wrote, “My poor Albert is quite broken down … and sad it breaks my heart.” Since early childhood, Karoline Amalie was betrothed to her double first-cousin Prince Frederik of Hesse; however, the engagement was dissolved in 1799 after the apparent affair between her and chamberlain Count Ludwig von Taube, who ended when Landgrave William I dismissed him from his service and expelled from court. In the summer of 1801 Karoline Amalie met Hereditary Prince Augustus of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg when he visited the Kassel court. In January of 1802 Duke Ernest II of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, in the name of his son, asked the hand of the princess in marriage. The wedding ceremony took place in her homeland, Kassel, on 24 April of that year. Prince Albert (youngest son of Karoline Amalie’s stepdaughter Louise) was the favorite step-grandson of the Dowager Duchess. From 1822 to 1835, he and his brother Ernest spent several weeks every year in the care of Karoline Amalie in the Winter Palace. Until her death, Albert maintained with her an active correspondence, where he always called her “Beloved Grandmother” and addressed his letters with the signature “Your faithful grandson Albert”. [Charles Grey, The youth of Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Gotha, 1868.]

The Uprising, by Daumier http://www.fsmitha.com/h3/h36-48.html

The Year of Revolutions, as it was called by many, had already brought anguish to Victoria’s throne. She feared her own upheaval. The Chartists appeared for a time to have the power to displace the monarchy in favor of a republic. The European continent was in turmoil. The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations, People’s Spring, Springtime of the Peoples, or the Year of Revolution, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe in 1848. The revolutions were essentially democratic in nature, with the aim of removing the old feudal structures and creating independent national states. The revolutionary wave began in France in February, and immediately spread to most of Europe and parts of Latin America. Over 50 countries were affected, but with no coordination or cooperation between their respective revolutionaries. Six factors were involved: widespread dissatisfaction with political leadership; demands for more participation in government and democracy; demands for freedom of press; the demands of the working classes; the upsurge of nationalism; and finally, the regrouping of the reactionary forces based on the royalty, the aristocracy, the army, the church and the peasants. [Merriman, John. A History of Modern Europe: From the French Revolution to the Present, 1996, page 715]

So three days after the passing of Albert’s beloved grandmother, revolution erupted in Paris. The “February Revolution” in France was sparked by the suppression of the campagne des banquets. This revolution was driven by nationalist and republican ideals among the French general public, who believed the people should rule themselves. It ended the constitutional monarchy of Louis-Philippe, [known as the “Citizen King,” a self-styled liberal] and led to the creation of the French Second Republic. The French objected to the disreputable rule of the Orléans monarchy. Louis-Philippe managed to escape the rabble by dressing as a woman and retreating through a servants’ door to freedom.

Bruxelles_à_travers_les_âges_(1884)_(14740791186)

A depiction of Leopold I of Belgium’s symbolic offer to resign the crown if the people demanded it. via Wikipedia

Albert’s Uncle Leopold had similar problems in Belgium. The uprisings in Belgium were local and concentrated in the sillon industriel industrial region of the provinces of Liège and Hainaut. The most serious threat of the 1848 revolutions in Belgium was posed by Belgian émigré groups. Shortly after the revolution in France, Belgian migrant workers living in Paris were encouraged to return to Belgium to overthrow the monarchy and establish a republic. Karl Marx was expelled from Brussels in early March on accusations of having used part of his inheritance to arm Belgian revolutionaries. Around 6,000 armed émigrés of the ” Belgian Legion” attempted to cross the Belgian frontier. The first group, traveling by train, were stopped and quickly disarmed at Quiévrain on 26 March 1848. The second group was defeated three days later. Belgian border troops tightened their hold on the country. [Chastain, James. “Belgium in 1848.” Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions. Ohio University]

When the French royal family arrived on English shores and seeking asylum, Victoria became so agitated that Prince Albert feared she might lose the child she carried [Princess Louise Caroline Alberta was born on 18 March 1848]. It is said that Prince Albert collected clothes for the displaced royal family. Trade disruptions in Europe caused high unemployment. That was magnified by the Whig party’s move to increase the militia to settle the unrest rather than to address the problem at hand. The populace became angry at the social inequities that existed in England.

As Princess Louise came into the world, news arrived of the uproar in Germany. Mobs in Berlin had attacked those involved in Prussian king’s government. The mob had more success in the south and the west of Germany, with large popular assemblies and mass demonstrations. Led by well-educated students and intellectuals, they demanded German national unity, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly. The uprisings were not well coordinated, but had in common a rejection of traditional, autocratic political structures in the 39 independent states of the German Confederation. The middle-class and working-class components of the Revolution split, and in the end, the conservative aristocracy defeated it, forcing many liberals into exile.

At the beginning of April, word arrived that the Chartists planned a mass demonstration at Kennington Common. According to Jerrold M. Packard in Victoria’s Daughters [St. Martin’s, 1998, pages 36-37], “The protestors meant their actions to be law-biding, but the first real specter of any substantive lower-class challenge to the establishment terrified those who believed that to have been born at the top of the social order was an act of divine planning. Ostensibly representing a mass plea for parliamentary reform – votes for all adult males, abolition of property qualifications for the vote, secret ballot, equal electoral districts – the Chartists fatally stirred their ideas with the stick of socialism, the philosophy still damp from the blood of the guillotine and anathema to the queen and the higher orders at whose head she symbolically stood.

“Buoyed by the events across the Channel, the Chartists claimed to have gathered 6 million signatures – a figure that would have represented a stunningly high proportion of Britain’s male population. The actual chart weighed 584 pounds and was ferried to the House of Commons spread over three cabs. Though most of those who signed would not have supported the tiny minority of revolutionaries advocating actual violence to achieve their objectives, the government was nonetheless sufficiently frightened to enlist 70,000 special constables charged with maintaining “social order.” In the end, parliamentary officials would dismiss the Chartists with the sneer that they had turned in “only” 2 million signatures. [In fact, the chart turned out to have contained 23,000 signatures.] Though the upper classes viewed all this through the prism of a Europe that was in many places really on fire, soon the prevailing mentality said that Britain’s immutable institutions survived because they were superior to those of their foreign counterparts.”

Resources:

The European Revolutions of 1848

The German-American Corner: The Revolution of 1848

Princess Karoline Amalie of Hesse-Kassel

Revolutions of 1848

Posted in Act of Parliament, British history, commerce, Great Britain, history, real life tales, Victorian era | Tagged British history, European history, Queen Victoria, Revolutions of 1848, turmoil, Victorian era | 2 Comments

The Story of the Botanics’ Sabal Palm Tree, a Living Vestige of the Regency, a Guest Post from Eliza Shearer

Posted on February 25, 2022 by Regina Jeffers

This post originally appeared on the Austen Authors’ blog on October 12, 2020. Enjoy!

I am a proud Edinburgh resident. As such, I’m spoilt for choice when it comes to reminders of the Regency, from windows and house doors to family portraits in museums and art galleries.

However, only a few days ago, one of such reminders disappeared forever. It was a living being, one already in existence when Jane Austen was alive.

The Sabal Palm Tree, A West Indies Native

I am talking of a Sabal palm tree, native to Bermuda, that arrived from the West Indies to the Port of Leith just outside Edinburgh in 1810. It was a long journey, one which the plant made in a Wardian case – essentially a terrarium, or mini-greenhouse (see picture at the top of the page).

In the early 19th century, the Royal Botanic Garden (also known as the “Physick Garden”) was to the west of Leith Walk, and that’s where the palm tree went. It was a little thing at the time: it took 40 years for it to grow a trunk, and another 80 for it to flower for the first time.

A Living Link to the Regency

I find it mind-blowing to think that the palm tree was planted in 1810, the same year that King George III was declared insane and Sense and Sensibility was accepted for publication. Jane Austen was very much alive, and possibly thinking about Mansfield Park.

Image source: Historia naturalis palmarum by Carol. Frid. Phil de Martius at Biodiversity LIbrary

By the way, I can quite imagine Sir Thomas admiring Sabal palm trees during his time overseas, and arranging for one to be transported back to his estate. In Miss Price’s Decision, I gave him (as well as his niece Susan) an interest in botany, which I thought suited a man with his responsibilities.

Following the Pineapple Trail

Conservatories and glasshouses as we know them today wouldn’t come until a few years after Jane Austen’s death. However, around that time, many grand houses had south-facing spaces with large windows and pitched glass roofs aimed at maximising light and warmth to grow plants.

As well as citrus, many fruits and vegetables grew in the so-called orangeries. By the Regency, heating was introduced through different means to enable the growth of exotic pineapples, which had very much taken centre stage.

The End of an Era at the Royal Botanic Gardens

But back to our palm tree. In 1821 they moved it to the present Royal Botanic Gardens site in Inverleith. They housed it in Stove House, kept warm with coal-fired boilers, until the majestic Tropical Palm House opened in 1858. It’s there that I saw the palm tree for the last time, all 60ft (18 metre) of it.

The Victorian Palm House at the Royal Botanic Gardens, empty of all specimens

The Royal Botanic Garden is undergoing an ambitious renovation, which includes stripping back the glasshouses and thoroughly repairing them. But while moving the plants to enable the work, it became apparent that the Sabal palm was way too large to make it outside of the glasshouse. With the glass being removed, it couldn’t say in the building either.

Long story short, they fell the Sabal palm two weeks ago today. It breaks my heart to think of it. Apparently, Sabal palms have a lifespan of around 200 years, so the Edinburgh one was coming to the end of its life.

It’s a sad ending for a majestic vestige of the Regency, but I will always remember it, proud and tall, as the centrepiece of the most beautiful of glasshouses.

Plants are silent beings, but also highly evocative. Have you come across any that have made an impression on you?

Posted in Austen Authors, Georgian England, Georgian Era, Guest Post, Jane Austen, Living in the Regency, Mansfield Park, real life tales, Regency era, research | Tagged Austen Authors, British history, Eliza Shearer, Georgian Era, guest post, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Regency Era | Comments Off

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