Temple Bar Returns

Loretta reports:

In Dukes Prefer Blondes, I mention Temple Bar, a gateway that stood where Fleet Street meets the Strand. Through it have passed, along with the usual traffic, monarchs dead and alive. On the main arch, on iron spikes, traitors’ heads were on display.

The structure still exists, as I set out to prove to my satisfaction during my stay in London, and this existence, to me, is a miracle. It is London’s only surviving gateway, and the story of its survival includes a trip to Hertfordshire.

Built in 1672, the time of King Charles II, it was taken down, stone by stone, in 1878, because it was in the way. It had for years obstructed traffic, and now it was hampering construction of the Royal Courts of Justice. Unlike other historical structures, though, Temple Bar was saved from complete destruction. The stones weren’t carried off and used to build something else. They were saved, in hopes of a restoration. Nobody quite worked out how to do this, though.

Then, ten years later, at his wife’s instigation, Sir Henry Meux bought the 400 tons of stone from the Corporation of London and rebuilt Temple Bar as a gateway into his estate at Theobalds Park in Hertfordshire. Apparently, it did the trick of enhancing Lady Meux’s social status, as she’d hoped: It’s believed that she dined in its upper chamber with, among other notables, the Prince of Wales and Winston Churchill.

Temple Bar remained at Theobolds Park until 2004, when it returned to London, to be reassembled, stone by stone, in Paternoster Square.

The History of Temple Bar site and the Wikipedia entry will offer you more details. I offer some pictures.

All images: Photo copyright © 2017 Walter M. Henritze III
Clicking on the image will enlarge it.

Before Refrigerators: The Ice House

Ice House 1817

Loretta reports:

Ice houses weren’t as rare in England as the excerpt from Ackermann's Repository for June 1817 makes one believe. Neither were baths, for that matter. And London did have its share of both. In the 17th century, King Charles II had not only one, but six ice houses built, including one for his mistress the Duchess of Cleveland.* You can read more about ice houses here, here, and here.

Photo of Duchess of Cleveland’s ice house scanned from Christopher Symon Sykes's Private Palaces.

Ice House Described

Ice House Described

*If you'd like to learn more about this remarkable woman, I highly recommend Susan Holloway Scott's (aka the other NHG) Royal Harlot.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

The Lily Font: Christening Princess Charlotte in Royal (and Historical) Style

Isabella reporting,

For a holiday weekend, these last few days have had their share of excitement, from fireworks, Wimbledon, and women's World Cup Soccer. But there was also a much quieter event on Sunday afternoon that had special appeal to us who like history and tradition. Two-month-old Princess Charlotte of Cambridge was baptized at St. Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham, surrounded by doting family, paparazzi, and a cheering crowd of royal supporters.

There has been plenty already written about how the princess cried, what her mother wore, and how her older brother had a small meltdown at the end of the day (as two-year-olds are entirely entitled to do, princely or not.) Of course the little princess made history simply by being born: thanks to recent changes in the laws of succession, she is the first British princess who cannot be displaced by any future younger brothers, and is now officially fourth in line for the throne. Considering how well Britain has done - and continues to do - under its queens, this is a fine thing indeed.

But I was fascinated by one of the lesser historical features of the christening that no cameras were permitted to capture. In fact, its very arrival in Sandringham from the Tower of London (where it is considered part of the Crown Jewels) was so shrouded in secrecy and high-level security that the man personally responsible for its care has never had his photograph taken with it, in case he might be identified and linked to the priceless treasure's whereabouts.

The Lily Font has been used for all royal baptisms since 1840. Made of silver gilt, the elaborate font features a design of water lilies (lilies in general represent purity, and water lilies are considered a symbol of new life) and harping putti (because putti are babies.) The font was ordered through the firm of E.&W.Smith, and made by Barnard & Co., at the sizable cost of £189 9s.4.d.

The font was ordered by Queen Victoria for the birth of her first child, Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa, who was born November 21, 1840; her baptism was not until February 10, 1841, her parents' wedding anniversary. That ceremony took place at Buckingham Palace, and earned the Queen's praise: "Albert and I agreed that all had gone off beautifully and in a very dignified manner."

Dignity was important to both Victoria and Albert. The Lily Font was not the first royal silver baptismal font. An earlier one had been made for Charles II in the 1660s. Unfortunately, Charles and his queen, Catherine of Braganza, had had no children between them, but the font had been put to good use for the christenings of a number of his illegitimate children with various mistresses. Not surprisingly, this association was distasteful to Victoria, who did not want her children to use the same font as Charles's royal by-blows - no matter how many other legitimate royal children had made use of it in the 18thc.

Princess Victoria was duly baptized by the Archbishop of Canterbury, with water brought from the River Jordan, exactly as Princess Charlotte was this weekend. From the news photos, the current royal family seemed every bit as happy with the results as Victoria and Albert had been.

Still, one wag wrote in a letter to The Telegraph (London): "Does an archbishop using water from the river Jordan in the Lily Font make you more christened than any old vicar using tap water in a stone trough?" Well, no; but it certainly must have made for a beautiful and history-laden ceremony.

Above: The Lily Font, 1840, by Barnard & Co.  The Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Who Drives in Rotten Row?

Hyde Park Corner

Loretta reports:

It’s been a while since I wrote my traditional Regency stories, and I’m not sure whether I allowed my characters to travel in a carriage in Rotten Row or realized this would be a faux pas. I’ve written about it before (here—with maps!)

“The right to drive along the Row in a carriage remained the prerogative of the reigning sovereign; as late as 1832, a map of London published by the United Kingdom Newspaper marked Rotten Row as ‘The King’s Private Road.’”
—Joyce Bellamy, Hyde Park for Horsemanship (1975)

Samuel Sidney’s Book of the Horse (1880) confirms this.

Rotten Row

As does Baron Redesdale’s Memories (1916)

Yet searching online leads to confusion. I find many books, by 19th C as well as recent authors, referring to driving in Rotten Row. Did these writers confuse Rotten Row with the carriage road running more or less parallel to it? A blog post indicates the Row was not restricted to riders until 1834, and certainly some caricatures seem to support this.Some 19th C authors describing Hyde Park say the rule was not in effect until Queen Victoria’s time, while others believe it dates to King Charles II or King William IV.

In any event, Queen Victoria was in no doubt whatsoever about her prerogative.

The Queen's Drive

Since my current books are set after 1830, I feel comfortable keeping my fictional carriages off Rotten Row.

Hyde Park after 1736-Larwood

Images: George Cruikshank, “The Arrival, or Western Entrance to Cockney Land” (first published in The English Spy 1825);  "Out of Place" from Punch, scanned from Hyde Park for Horsemanship; Hyde Park after 1735 from Larwood, The Story of the London Parks (1874).

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will allow you to read at the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Stylish Lady Mary and a Basket of Cherries, 1793

Isabella reporting,

Most of the portraits I've featured in blog posts have been of adult sitters, but I couldn't resist sharing this charming – and quite stylish – young lady.

She's Lady Mary Beauclerk, the only daughter of the 6th Duke of St. Albans, Aubrey Beauclerk, and his first wife Lady Jane Moses Beauclerk. Lady Mary was only two when she sat for her first portrait, yet clearly she's making a fashion statement.

She's wearing a white muslin gown - standard attire for both young girls and boys at the time – but around her waist is a wide ikat sash that likely was imported from India, or perhaps France. She has little red shoes and a lace-trimmed cap, but the main attraction is that hat.

Hardly an ordinary baby bonnet, her hat appears to made of fine woven straw, lined with white silk, and features a towering crown decked with grey silk ribbons. When I think of how difficult it is to persuade most small children to keep hats on their heads, I wonder how the artist managed to have her pose.

The secret might have been that basket of cherries. Cherries and other fruit often appear in portraits of children in this time. Although the exact meaning in this painting isn't known, they usually symbolize purity, youth, and vitality - although here they also co-ordinate nicely with Lady Mary's red shoes. The basket was a prop from the artist's studio, and appears in at least one more of his portraits with small children, so perhaps the cherries were his way to amuse young sitters.

And no, the cherries don't symbolize an early death. Lady Mary grew up to be an heiress with a sizable fortune of £100,000, and in June of 1811, she married George William Coventry, 8th Earl of Coventry. She had two children, and died at 54 in Naples, Italy. In this portrait, she looks like a little girl with a lot of spirit and personality, which may have been part of her family inheritance, too: her father's dukedom had been created a century before to honor the son of Charles II and his mistress, the famously "pretty, witty" actress Nell Gwyn - who would have been her 6X grandmother.

The artist of this portrait is also interesting, because he was American. James Earl (1761-1796) was born in Leicester, MA, the younger brother of another painter, Ralph Earl (1751-1801). While nothing is known of James's early artistic training, at his brother's urging he traveled to London to study, and remained there for about a decade. There he improved his skill and found great success, including exhibiting at the Royal Academy. He painted the portraits of many of the prominent American Loyalists who had been forced to flee to England by the Revolution, and while he didn't have the lofty titled clientele of Sir Joshua Reynolds or Thomas Gainsborough, painting the daughter of the Duke of St. Albans must have been quite a coup for him – and likely helped him find more status-conscious patrons when he returned to America.

Above: Lady Mary Beauclerk, by James Earl, c. 1793-94. Crystal Bridges Museum Collection, Bentonville, Arkansas.

Ugbrooke Park: Saving a Historic English Country House

Isabella reporting,

Many of us Nerdy History Folk dream of living in a grand English country house, whether Pemberley, Downton Abbey, or, in the case of Loretta and me, the imagined house in our current WIPs. But in too many cases, that dream country house proves more of a nightmare for the families who inherit estates burdened with taxes and hundreds of years of deferred maintenance. The scores of servants necessary to support such an estate have vanished, and in many cases the necessary income necessary has disappeared as well. It's estimated that 1 in 6 of the great English country houses has been demolished in the last 75 years, and the inescapable economics of a long-gone way of life means that others houses are sure to meet the same fate.

But one house that teetered on the bring of such a disaster has returned to flourish: Ugbrooke Park, located in Devon. Last week I had the pleasure of hearing Clarissa Clifford, Lady Clifford of Chudleigh, and the current mistress of Ugbrooke Park, speak at Winterthur Museum about both the challenges and rewards that Ugbrooke has offered.

The Cliffords have the kind of family history that novelists like me love. Scattered through the centuries are a royal mistress and an Elizabethan privateer, an adventuresome lord who rode the American plains with General Custer, another who became a cardinal, and yet another who was an eccentric famous for founding the Mystic Evolution Society.

But the ancestor most important to Ugbrook was Thomas Clifford, 1st Baron of Chudleigh, who was one of the most trusted of Charles II's ministers. (If you've read any of my Restoration-set historical novels, then you'll recognize Lord Clifford's name, even though he wasn't well-liked by any of my heroines.) In return for Lord Clifford's services, the king granted him the land that would become Ugbrooke.

The 4th Lord Clifford, Hugh, transformed the property extensively in the late 18th century, adding beautiful interiors by Robert Adam and landscapes and gardens by Lancelot "Capability" Brown. The turreted exterior with a medieval flavor was the latest fashion at the time, but a mixed success in a land of Palladian symmetry; it's that somewhat squat appearance that has earned Ugbrooke its reputation as an "architectural ugly duckling."

But over the centuries, the house's fortunes declined. While the 20th c. members of the family preferred their lands in New Zealand, Ugbrooke languished, serving as a school, a refuge for soldiers, and, most ignominiously, a granary. When the 13th Lord Clifford returned with his family in 1957, he began the monumental challenge of making the house once again fit to be a home, a task that the 14th Lord Clifford continues today.

There were many decisions to be made. Instead of restoring the house into a museum-like setting, the family chose to make it a family home with modern amenities where the children's pets were as important as the Robert Adam ceilings. History was respected and embraced – one of the highlights of the restoration was discovering Adam's

working drawings – but never overshadowed the present. Budgets were strict, and addressing unglamorous projects like new roofs, dry rot, and plumbing were methodically accomplished year by year. To help fund the restoration, a family heirloom – the state papers of the secret 1670 Treaty of Dover between Charles II and Louis XIV that had been given to the first Lord Clifford for safekeeping – was sold at auction.

Lady Clifford is a professional London-based interior designer who, after her marriage, threw herself whole-heartedly into the house's rebirth on a budget. Stables and attics were searched, and long-neglected furnishings were restored and given a fresh place in the house. Murky forgotten paintings became glorious again once cleaned and rehung. When recreating an elaborate plaster frieze proved prohibitively expensive, a printed trompe l'oeil version was substituted instead. After a half-century, the transformation is still on-going, but that's to be expected when your renovation has more than eighty rooms.

Today Ugbrooke Park has a new life as Ugbrooke Enterprises. The estate can be hired for destination weddings, corporate retreats, concerts, and hunting parties, and also hosts events as diverse as classic automobile shows and whippet fun days. Lord and Lady Clifford entertain overnight guests from around the world, including groups from Winterthur. (You can read more here on Ugbrooke's website.)

And from Lady Clifford's presentation, I'd say Ugbrooke looks once again thoroughly dream-worthy.

For another country house that's being pulled back from the brink of disaster by its determined family, see this post on Highclere Castle, otherwise known as Downton Abbey. For one that sadly wasn't as fortunate, see here for Mavisbank.

Photos top and bottom left copyright Patrick Baty.
Photos right copyright Ugbrooke.

Where do dukes come from?

Duke of Wellington 1818

Loretta reports:

One of my readers recently sent this message:

<<How do the dukes...get their initial titles? And where does the name that follows their title come from? e.g. The Duke of Wellington; Does he earn his title? And where does the Wellington come from?>>

The Peerage is tricky, even for the British.  I often quote Whitaker’s Peerage:  “The rules which govern the arrangements of the Peerage are marked by so many complications that even an expert may occasionally be perplexed.” For a blog post I have to keep to very general terms, and ask you to bear in mind Whitaker’s observation.  Exceptions abound.

In a nutshell, the sovereign bestows the title—and a dukedom is not frequently bestowed, as my post about dukes points out. The name following the title is a place name, usually one with which the duke is associated.  For the Duke of Wellington, this was Wellington, in Somerset.  Does he earn his title?  That depends on your definition of “earn.” The 1820 Annual Register, listing members of the peerage, includes a column explaining the reason the title was bestowed:  Court Favour, Family Influence, State Service, Naval Services, Military Services, Diplomatic Services, Legal Services, Marriage, Influence of Wealth.

1918 Whitaker's Peerage

Interestingly, the column is blank for dukes except Leinster and Wellington: Military Service. This and royal favor seem to be the main reasons for dukedoms.  As we’ve mentioned on this blog before, King Charles II made several illegitimate sons dukes—e.g., of Monmouth, Cleveland, Grafton, Northumberland, St. Albans, and Richmond—as well as restoring or creating some for favored courtiers.

For more details, you might want to peruse Whitaker's or read the Wikipedia British Peerage entry.

Image, The Duke of Wellington on Copenhagen, by Thomas Lawrence (1818)
courtesy Wikipedia. 1918 Whitaker's Peerage cover courtesy Internet Archive.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source page.  

Return Engagement: Hortense Mancini & Anne Lennard, Ladies with Swords, 1675

Isabella reporting,

Loretta's post about dueling ladies of 1811 reminded me of another pair from 1675. In this case, the identities of the two ladies made for just as much gossip as their activity.

Hortense Mancini, duchesse Mazarin (1646-1699) was a high-born adventuress in every sense of the word. The favorite niece of Cardinal Mazarin, Hortense was married off at fifteen in 1661 to the richest gentleman in Europe. Unfortunately, he was one of the most mentally unbalanced as well, and in 1668 Hortense fled the marriage.

Roaming across Europe, she cut a flamboyant figure wherever she went: tall and beautiful in either men's clothing or women's, she rode and drank hard, gambled, shot pistols, swam in rivers, took lovers of both genders, played the guitar and danced like a gypsy. When she finally landed in London in 1675, King Charles II was duly impressed, and soon Hortense was sharing his bed.

But the Roman duchesse also captivated another: Anne Lennard, Countess of Sussex (1661-1721). The fifteen-year-old countess was the first child (of many) of Charles and Barbara Palmer, Duchess of Cleveland. Legitimized and ennobled, the countess had been unhappily married for two years when Hortense arrived, and the pair soon became not only great friends, but almost certainly lovers.

Thus our combatants: one lady who is mistress to the king, but also involved in a lesbian affair with the other lady, half her age, who is a daughter of that same king. As can be imagined, this was scandalous even in Restoration England, and the gossip was fierce. Here is a report in a letter by the clearly titillated Lady Chaworth to her brother Lord Roos in December, 1676:

"Lady Sussex and Madame Mazarin have privately learnt to fence, and went downe into St. James Parke the other day with drawne swords under theire night gownes, which they drew out and made severall fine passes with, to the admiration of severall men that was lookers on in the Parke."

Predictably, Lord Sussex was not amused:

"They say [Lady Sussex's] husband and she will part unless she leave the Court and be content to live to him in the country, he disliking her much converse with Madame Mazarin and the addresses she gets amongst that company."*

Lord Sussex kept his word, and hauled his wife off to the country with him, where it was reported Anne took to her bed and wept bitterly, kissing a miniature portrait of Hortense. Back in London, Hortense merely shrugged, and moved on to her next extracurricular lover (in addition to Charles): Louis I de Grimaldi, Prince de Monaco.

But Anne wasn't done enhancing her notoriety, either. Taken next to a nunnery in Paris in 1678, she soon found ways to slip free, and at seventeen, began a heated affair with the forty-year-old English ambassador, Ralph Montagu (1638-1709) - who had once been one of her mother's lovers as well.

Above: Portrait of Hortense Mancini by Jacob Voet, 1671, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia

* From The Manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Rutland, preserved at Belvoir Castle

Casual Friday: Royal Bedchamber

Loretta reports:

A friend recently returned from London reported happily on an exhibition at Hampton Court Palace, “Secrets of the Royal Bedchamber.” 

As one who only a few years ago discovered Hampton Court Palace’s delights (blogs here and here and here, and here and here, for instance) and who spent some time studying the royal bedrooms (and the lavatories), I was very excited to visit online.  The Historic Royal Palaces website offers several wonderful, short videos about the exhibition, as well information about how to conserve your own precious objects.

This made it hard to choose among the riches.  But I thought our Nerdy History readers would be as fascinated as I was by the painstaking methods used to conserve a bed rail.








Readers who receive our blog via email might see a rectangle, square, or nothing where the video ought to be.  To watch the video, please click on the title to this post.

From the Archives: Men Behaving Badly: Sir Charles Sedley, 1663

Isabella reporting,

Because today is a "travel day" for me, returning home from Colonial Williamsburg, I'm sharing one of my more lurid posts from the past. My five historical novels (written as Susan Holloway Scott) were all set in Restoration England, during the reign of King Charles II (1660 -1685.) This was a very good time for very bad gentlemen, when just about any excess could be explained away if one had a title, or at least was friends with the King.

Sir Charles Sedley (1639-1701) was a wealthy, well-connected baronet who wrote witty plays and poetry, played tennis with the King, dabbled in diplomacy, and eventually became a respectable politician in the House of Commons. He looks innocuous enough, left, but in 1663, he was best known for often being "rhetorically drunk", and also for one particularly bad example of bad-boy-dom, so scandalous that Samuel Johnson was still sputtering over it a century later:

Sir Charles Sedley, Lord Buckhurst, and Sir Thomas Ogle, got drunk at the Cock [a notorious tavern] in Bow Street, by Covent Garden, and going into the balcony exposed themselves to the populace below in very indecent postures. At last, as they grew warmer, Sedley stood forth naked, and harangued the populace in such profane language, that the publick indignation was awakened; the crowd attempted to force the door, and being repulsed, drove at the performers with stones, and broke the windows of the house.  For this misdemeanour, [the three gentlemen] were indicted, and Sedley was fined five hundred pounds....Sedley employed [his friend Harry] Killigrew [groom of the bedchamber to the King's brother, the Duke of York] to procure a remission from the King, but (mark the friendship of the dissolute!) they begged the fine for themselves, and exacted it to the last groat.

For a far more frank telling of these frat-house-style shenanigans, see Samuel Pepys's diary entry – scroll down to the first annotation/comment at the bottom by Terry F., and hold on to your coffee cup.

Above: Sir Charles Sedley, 5th Baronet. Engraving after a painting by Michael Van der Gucht, published 1722.

Casual Friday: Restoration Women

Loretta reports:

Devotees of Susan Holloway Scott's historical novels will, I think, enjoy getting additional perspective on the women who populate those stories.  Lucy Worsley, who has hosted a number of interesting series we've highlighted on the blog, this time takes us on a time travel adventure titled Harlots, Housewives and Heroines: A 17th Century History For Girls.  This is the first part.  It's a full length program, so please set aside an hour.

Readers who receive our blog via email might see only a rectangle or square where the video ought to be.  To watch the video, please click on the title to this post.

The Liberated Lives of Hortense & Marie Mancini

Susan reporting:

Hortense Mancini, Duchess Mazarin (1646-1699) is one of my favorite historical women. I've written about her here and here for this blog, and she's also cut a bold figure in several of my historical novels, including The French Mistress and The King's Favorite.

Born a niece of the powerful Cardinal Mazarin, Hortense was a beautiful, flamboyant woman unhappily married off to a fanatical madman. Granted, she would have challenged most husbands: she rode, shot, gambled, swam, read and wrote, fought with swords, dressed in men's clothes, kept a menagerie of pets, and took lovers with abandon, including the English King Charles II.

But in 17th c society, women were considered their husband's property, with few rights of their own, and Hortense rebelled. She fled her husband, as did her equally unhappily married sister Marie Mancini, Princess Colonna (1639-1715) - who had herself been an early love of the French King Louis XIV- and together the two women embarked on a wild journey across Europe. Keeping one step ahead of their husbands, they travelled scandalously on their own from one royal court to another. Best of all, Hortense wrote her memoirs, whose frankness and feminist philosophy made them an instant sensation. How can you not like a woman like that?

My only regret regarding Hortense and Marie was that, stunningly, neither lady had a first-rate biography. Now they do: The Kings' Mistresses by noted scholar Elizabeth C. Goldsmith. Bringing together the remarkable lives of Hortense and Marie Mancini against the tumultuous world of Baroque Europe, this dual biography is rich with period detail and thoughtful research. It's historical biography at its best - the intertwined story of two women who refused to be ruled by either husbands or kings, and dared instead to create their own destiny.

Above: Hortense Mancini, by Benedetto Gennari the Younger, Musee des Beaux-Arts, Valenciennes.


In accordance with the FTC, I received this book from the publisher for review - though I would definitely have bought it on my own, too!

Those shameless English aristocrats

Loretta reports:

An American waxes indignant about the English aristocracy’s shameless ways.

~~~

One of his subjects said that Charles II. was the father of many of his people in a literal sense.  He recruited the ranks of the nobility largely with his children and their mothers, and at least five English dukes to-day can trace their lineage to the monarch who left no legitimate descendant . . .

These offshoots of royalty claim all the distinction that their birth confers.  The daughter of a ducal house prides herself on her likeness to her great ancestor, Nell Gwynne, whose portrait hang in her drawing-room, so that all who come can compare.  You can pay her no higher compliment than to notice the resemblance which proves her royal origin . . .

Illegitimacy, however, in England is not confined to the descendants of royalty.  The nobility emulates the example set by a long line of sovereigns.  In the exalted circles of the aristocracy the bastards of peers go about bearing the family names, and daughters whose mothers are unrecognized marry into families as “good” as those on the paternal side.  There are even instances of sons born before the marriage of their parents, whose younger brothers inherit titles to which the elders would have succeeded, but for the neglect of their mothers to go to church in time: the legitimate and illegitimate children can claim precisely the same progenitors.  Some of these premature sons are to-day ministers at foreign courts, others have been masters of ceremonies in royal houses, while dukes and earls have been able to find places for the spawn of shame in the army, the Foreign Office, and even in that Church whose rites they had themselves neglected to observe.

God knows the unfortunates are not to blame; but to make their birth a distinction and an advantage is a greater enormity than the offence to which they owe their origin.

—Adam Badeau, Aristocracy in England, 1856

~~~

I'll let my readers decide whether American Victorians were more “Victorian” than their English counterparts . . .

Illustration:  Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St. Albans, son of King Charles II & Nell Gwynne  

King George IV & the paparazzi of his day

Loretta reports:

My recent blogs about King George IV and Lady Worsley got me thinking about the media’s influence on our attitude toward historical figures.  Sir Richard Worsley tried to make a life for himself after the crim. con. case, but it haunted him for the rest of his life, thanks to the caricatures.  Displayed in print shop windows and print sellers’ umbrellas, these reached a great many more people, from all walks of life, than did newspapers and printed reports of legal proceedings.

King George IV had a similar problem.  He “had the great misfortune to live through the golden age of English caricature from 1780 to 1830 when the high and mighty were not spared.”*

“No account betrays the impact of satirical iconography on memory and hence on verbal caricature more obviously than Thackeray’s”**  (Beerbohm’s essay tackles Thackeray’s version of history.)

“Even now Gillray’s and Cruikshank’s prints more deeply influence our sense of the prince than any contemporary textual description.  Modern attempts to rehabilitate George IV’s reputation as connoisseur or statesman in effect still do battle with the caricatures.”**

The years I’ve spent researching his world lead me to the same conclusion.  I keep finding myself comparing and contrasting.  That nasty divorce case, for instance.  So I wonder why Henry VIII, who went through six wives, isn’t a bigger villain.  He executed two—and their bad conduct was mild compared to Caroline’s, as England belatedly discovered.

As to libertines, I reflect on Charles II.   He had a harem of mistresses, yet frequented brothels.  He showered his favorites with riches.  (Susan can tell you how many ships it took to carry the Duchess of Portland’s stuff back to France).  He begat many bastards, and gave most of the males dukedoms or earldoms.  He got the nickname the Merry Monarch.

Edward VII was a serial adulterer, too.  But “Punch never hinted at his philandering.  It was left to the French magazines, which did not circulate in Britain, to show him frequenting brothels, fondling naked prostitutes, smoking and drinking to excess.”*

“Unlike George IV, Charles II and Edward VII left behind them no enduring monuments for which the nation could be grateful.”*

They didn’t leave behind so many caricatures, either.

*Kenneth Baker, George IV A Life in Caricature.
** Vic Gattrell, City of Laughter.

Illustrations:  George, Cruikshank, Merry making on the regents birth day, 1812.
(Published by W Benbow) The Kremlin in commotion - or - the Grand Lama sick of the horn cholic, 1820. Both prints courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.

Guy Fawkes Night, 1678: Bonfires, Fear, & Intolerance

Susan reports:

In Britain today, the Fifth of November – or Guy Fawkes Day, or Bonfire Night – is marked with fireworks, bonfires, and hot roasted potatoes, a fun frolic under the autumn night sky.

The origins of the holiday as an official "Day of Thanksgiving" is lost on most modern revelers. In 1605, a small band of English Catholics conspired to assassinate the Protestant King James I by blowing up him and the House of Lords with a sizable store of gunpowder, and setting a Catholic ruler on the English throne. The plot was discovered, and Guy Fawkes and his supporters were arrested, tortured, and executed. Soon after, the Thanksgiving Act was passed, with the day to be set aside for reflection and rejoicing at the king's deliverance.

But in the politically charged climate of 17th century England, thanksgiving quickly acquired uglier overtones, and the holiday became noted for anti-Catholic demonstrations. By 1678, fear of Catholics had reached a feverish pitch. Catholics were blamed for starting the Great Fire that had burned a large part of London in 1666, for planning to murder King Charles II, and for plotting a French invasion that would result in forced conversions of all English Protestants, and massacres of those who resisted. It didn't help that Charles's brother and heir, James, had converted to Catholicism, and was set to marry an Italian Catholic princess. Nervous Londoners saw menacing Papists and Jesuits lurking behind every corner. Protestant pulpits thundered warning sermons, and innocent foreigners were accused of being Catholic and beaten by mobs in the streets.

As a result, the London celebration of the Fifth of November in 1678 was a lavish affair, attended by huge crowds. A long parade, above, of participants mockingly dressed as Catholic priests and cardinals with a smattering of devils, threaded through the streets, with the loudest jeers reserved for the effigies of the Pope. Here is an excerpt from a tract* describing the event:

"On this present Fifth Day of November, they caused several of the said Effigies, or Resemblances of the Pope, to be made; some of them displaying him in one posture, and some in another; but all of them were followed with loud and numerous acclamations to their several places of Execution.


"He of them who might best pretend to the priority in point of Workmanship and Invention, was raised on a small Pavilion, born like Pageants on Men's Backs, with a large Cross filled with Lamps, which in much majesty stalks before him, whilst the Effigies, curiously adorned with his Triple Crown, Necklace of Beads, and all his other superstitious Accouterments, came very sumptuously behind, in procession from  the Royal-Exchange to Temple-Bar....


"So frollick was [the effigy], that he danced before the Flames, and when he came near the place of Execution, cut a Caper into a great Bonfire, provided on purpose to entertain him, whose abominable civilities had been so great, as heretofore to provide such large ones for others. In time after this feigned Pope had been sufficiently exposed to the Vulgar Reflections, he was hurl'd, Canopy, Triple Crown, Beads, Crucifix and all into the Bonfire...where a world of People celebrated his fall with a general cry, that all his Majesties Enemies, or the perverters of the Protestant Religion, or English Government, may ere long be reduced to some such Fate."

Guy Fawkes Day ceased to be an official holiday in Britain in 1859, and while there will still be bonfires, no religious effigies will be consigned to the flames – not that we modern folk are entirely past burning symbols of the faiths of others.

Above: Detail of The Solemn Mock Procession of the Pope, Cardinalls, Jesuits, Fryers &c., through the City of London. Published by Samuel Lee, London, 1680.


* "The Manner of the burning of the pope effigies in London on the 5th of November, 1678, with the manner of carrying him through several streets in progression to Temple-Bar, where at length he was decently burned: also a particular of several bloody massacres done by the papists upon the bodies of English, Irish and French Protestants" by Anonymous: London, 1678

Intrepid Women: Katherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester

Susan reports:

Whenever we post about a historical Intrepid Lady, we always see at least one comment about how that lady's story would make a fantastic book. Today I'm heading the comments off at the proverbial pass, because this Intrepid Lady is the heroine of my brand-new historical novel The Countess and the King.

Though only a footnote in most histories, Katherine Sedley (1657-1717) deserves more than that. True, she didn't change the course of history, or create or inspire great works of art. But she was wickedly funny, independent, and unpredictable, and determined to go her own way, which very few other well-bred 17th c. ladies dared to do.

The only child of libertine poet Sir Charles Sedley and a lady-mother who went mad, Katherine was treated more like a pet than a daughter by her father, one of the riotous young gentleman who made the Restoration court such a scandalous place to be in the 1660s. Like some modern Hollywood child, Katherine mingled with rakes and actresses in taverns, playhouses, and at racecourses, and at an early age learned to drink, swear, and speak her mind.

While she could still have been redeemed by her father's connections and wealth and made a good marriage, there were two stumbling blocks. First, Katherine was considered shamefully plain. Second, and more importantly, she didn't want to give control of her life to a husband. Instead she became known as an independent lady at court, shocking and delighting with her wit and outrageous observations. She was often on the receiving end of cruel jests, too, but she held her head high, and laughed in return. She endured several painful love affairs before shocking everyone yet again by becoming the mistress of the king's brother, James, Duke of York. He was smitten by her cleverness and her audacity, and he seems to have genuinely loved her, and she him. Unlike other royal mistresses, she'd chosen to be with him not for wealth or prestige, but simply because it pleased her to do so.

But when Charles II died and James was made king, the relationship soured beneath the weight of James's increasing loyalty to the Catholic Church. The end was untidy, with public scenes and dramatic banishments, but Katherine had chosen wisely when she parted with him. Three years later, James was chased from the throne in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and replaced by his daughter Mary and her husband, William of Orange.

Most royal mistresses disappear with their kings. Katherine wasn't ready to retire. Instead she fought Parliament to keep the lands and other gifts that James had given their daughter, and won. She teased the new Queen Mary about being her father's old mistress, and acted up in the staid new court as the defiant reminder of the wicked old days. At the then-ancient age of nearly forty, she finally found a man she loved well enough to marry, Sir David Colyear, a gruff, one-eyed officer noted for his bravery, who was in time made Earl of Portmore. She bore him two sons, and relished her new role as a mother.

But even in old age, Katherine was determined to be outrageous. At one of George I's stuffy assemblies, she was sat near Louise de Keroualle, Charles II's last mistress, and Elizabeth Villiers, William III's mistress. "Who would have thought that we three old whores would have met here?" she cackled loudly, to the shocked delight of everyone around them.

"Her wit was rather surprizing than pleasing," wrote Lord Dartmouth, "for there was no restraint in what she said of or to any body." How, really, could I resist?

Above: Katherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester, by Godrey Kneller, c.1683