The Regency's Duke of Cambridge

Duke of Cambridge 1806

Loretta reports:

Having recently reported on the present Duke of Sussex and the previous holder of that title, I thought it made sense to look at the man who last held Prince William’s title, Duke of Cambridge.

As in Prince Harry’s case, Prince Adolphus Frederick, the previous Duke of Cambridge (1774-1850), lived during the Regency and Victorian eras, and his life shows some parallels to Prince William’s. Prince Adolphus served in the military, was generally well-liked—including by his father, George III, who wasn’t crazy about his older sons. This royal duke, too, married a beautiful young woman, and had three children

With the death of the Princess Charlotte in 1817, he, like his other brothers, was obliged to find a wife. Of the royal dukes, Peter Pindar wrote:

Agog are all, both old and young
    Warmed with desire to be prolific
And prompt with resolution strong
    To fight in Hyman’s war terrific.

Within two weeks of his niece’s death, he sent a marriage proposal to the Princess Augusta, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel’s youngest daughter. She was twenty years old and  beautiful.

“This was the first of the three Royal marriages since Princess Charlotte married Prince Leopold that roused the romantic enthusiasm of the British public* ... “The Duke and Duchess had only to show themselves to be loudly cheered. The first Sunday after their arrival in England they were recognized strolling together in Hyde Park, and were at once surrounded and jostled by a large crowd, cheering and yelling ... On another occasion they were recognized in their carriage outside the famous City jewelers, Rundle and Bridge, and a great crowd came yelling round them, so that it was twenty minutes before their coachman dared move.”

Augusta, Duchess of Cambridge, 1818

Their first son, born in March 1819, was christened George, and was in line for the throne until Victoria was born, a few months later.

“And if the English public had good reason to be satisfied with the marriage, so had the Duke of Cambridge. He wrote of himself when he was first married: ‘I really believe that on the surface of the globe there does not exist so happy a Being as myself ... and Heaven grant that I may be deserving of it and not forfeit my happiness by any misconduct.’”

He became rather eccentric in later life—among other things, having gone deaf, he sat in front of the church and kept up a running, plainly audible, commentary—and was on very bad terms with Queen Victoria during her early years on the throne. But in a time of rampant anti-Semitism, he remained sympathetic to Jews. He was the only one of George III’s sons who lived within his income. “He was certainly most generous with his time, and equally generous with his money to an almost incredible number of charitable causes.”

Quotations and other information from Roger Fulford’s Royal Dukes.

*Let’s just say that the other couples were rather less attractive.
Images: E. Harding, Duke of Cambridge 1806; Sir William Beechey, Augusta, Duchess of Cambridge, 1818.

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.

London's Kensal Green Cemetery

Loretta reports:

I’ve posted before about the garden cemetery movement, and the development of municipal cemeteries in response to overcrowded and squalid burial grounds. Thanks to my husband, I discovered in London The General Cemetery of All Souls, Kensal Green—more generally known as Kensal Green Cemetery. There, in the course of a tour, I discovered the burial places of many persons I’d learned about while researching my books. One of these was the famous Regency-era equestrian Andrew Ducrow, whose tomb I blogged about.

Today we’ll take a look at this beautiful cemetery itself.

Interestingly, like Worcester’s Rural Cemetery, it got started thanks to a lawyer, George Frederick Carden. Like so many others in the garden cemetery movement, he was inspired by Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.  Unlike many others, though, Kensal Green, London’s first commercial cemetery, is still run by the original company, the General Cemetery Company, under its original Act of Parliament. In the beginning, however, business looked a little shaky. Though it opened in 1833, it wasn't exactly overwhelmed with customers. Then in 1843 the Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex—one of King George III's many sons—decided to be buried there because Windsor’s burial facility apparently gave him the creeps. Thenceforth Kensal Green became THE place to be planted.

Detail of the second monument

Our fabulous tour guide

It's true. Though not nearly as well-known today as Highgate Cemetery, Kensal Green was, until shortly after the turn of the 20th century, the most fashionable cemetery in England. Everybody who was anybody wanted to be buried here.

Like Highgate, sadly, it could use some TLC. Monuments, like Ducrow’s, are crumbling. The Friends of Kensal Green have been working to research and restore the monuments. It was one of these Friends who led our walking tour, and his love of the place was clear. If you are in London, I strongly recommend you take one of their Sunday tours. Along with the amazing variety of monuments, the stories about the famous and less so, there’s abundant nature—the plantings, the birds and other wildlife—to create a very special refuge from the bustle of the metropolis.

For more of the story and the denizens of the place, please visit the Friends of Kensal Green website and the Kensal Green Cemetery website.

All photographs copyright © 2017 Walter M. Henritze III.
Please click on images to enlarge.

Fashions for July 1810, a Strange Contrast

1810 Ball Dress

July 1810 Court Dress

1810 Ball Dress description

Loretta reports:

Throughout the earliest part of the 1800s until 1820, when the Prince of Wales (later Prince Regent*) became King George IV and changed the rules, ladies had to wear a very strange fashion for Royal Court occasions.

While court dress was quite formal, it wasn’t like normal formal dress, as you can see when you compare these two fashion plates.

Since author Candice Hern offers a beautiful explanation of court dress here at her website, I will leave it to her, while I leave you to ponder what hoops did to the slim silhouette we associate with Regency dress.

1810 Court Dress description

Images: The Ball Dress is from Ackermann's Repository for July 1810, courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art via the Internet Archive. The Court Dress is courtesy the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (the Google Books edition of La Belle Assemblée, where I found the description, had only a black and white plate.)

*“Regency” strictly interpreted, refers to the time he was Prince Regent, when his father, King George III, was too ill to carry out his duties as monarch. Many social historians, however, use the term Regency to cover a much broader period, often from 1800 to 1837, when Victoria became queen, and ushered in the Victorian period.

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The Amazing John Joseph Merlin

John Joseph Merlin

Loretta reports:

When I found the Ackermann plate of Merlin’s Mechanical Chair, historical nerdiness compelled me to find out who "Merlin" was.  Funnily enough, the Wikipedia entry led me back to Two Nerdy History Girls, and Isabella/Susan’s Friday Video of John Joseph Merlin’s extraordinary swan.

Since there are quite a few articles and biographies online (here, here,and here), I’m going to offer some of the high points from Richard D. Altick’s less easily accessible The Shows of London.

About 1774-75 Merlin patented a combination harpsichord and pianoforte, and soon thereafter created a six-octave pianoforte (some years before Broadwood introduced his 5½ octave span instrument).  Merlin created “a barrel organ-harpsichord capable of playing nineteen tunes, a one-man orchestra,” and many other musical devices.  He created a tea table the hostess could make revolve via a foot pedal, to bring each cup to her in turn.  He made a bell device to let servants know what the master wanted at a given time.  In Hyde Park he drove a “mechanical chariot” [pictured below] whose equipment included a mechanical whip and an 18th C version of an odometer (the latter actually a 17th C invention).  He created a type of roller skate—but having failed to provide brakes, he crashed into a mirror. 

“Still other exhibits [at Merlin’s Mechanical Museum] were a gambling machine ... a set of whist cards for the blind, which may well have been an anticipation of the Braille system; the bust of a Turk which chewed and swallowed an artificial stone, and an ‘Aerial Cavalcade,’ four wooden horses on a structure supported by six pillars, ‘on which the Ladies and Gentlemen may ride, perfectly safe, over the heads of the rest of the company.’  This last was unquestionably an early carousel, complete with brass rings.”

John Joseph Merlin & his mechanical chariot

The mechanical chair was one of several devices he invented for the use of ill and handicapped people. For example, King George III might have endured physician abuse, but he did enjoy one of the mechanical chairs.  The following quotation appears in numerous early 19th century books and periodicals: “One of Merlin’s chairs was at this time provided for him, with which he was so pleased, that he was constantly removed from one room to another in it.”
—Dodsley's Annual Register for 1820.

One more interesting tidbit from Altick:  Merlin, a Belgian, had an extensive English vocabulary, but often put the words in the wrong order and “had an unerring habit of stressing the wrong syllable.”

Images:   
Portrait of Jean-Joseph Merlin (1735-1803) from Belgium; mechanical engineer, inventor of the roller-skate and designer and maker of various musical instruments, clocks and other mechanical constructions, by Thomas Gainsborough (1782) from Kenwood House collection.

Merlin and his carriage from Kirby's Wonderful and Eccentric Museum (1803) aka Kirby's Wonderful and Scientific Museum.

Friday Video: King George III's insanity cure

Treatment with tractors

Loretta reports:

Among other research for Dukes Prefer Blondes, my current WIP, I've been looking at medical books and treatises from the early 1800s.  These leave one amazed that any of the patients survived their treatments.  Even monarchs suffered at their physicians' hands.  This Horrible History is, if anything, quite an understatement, and King George III was by no means the only royal tortured by his doctors.










 Illustration: James Gillray, Metallic Tractors (1801), from Wikipedia

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

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.

Friday video: Georgian history & politics according to Thomas Rowlandson

Rowlandson, Portsmouth Point

Loretta reports:

Since we Nerdy History Girls are so nerdy about the Georgian era, certain names are as familiar to us as current celebrities are to normal people.

One of our historical celebrities is Thomas Rowlandson, who often illustrates our posts.

This short clip gives a little summary of early 19th century England politics & scandal, with Rowlandson providing the show & tell and the wonderful Brian Blessed narrating.

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.

Image:  Thomas Rowlandson, Portsmouth Point, courtesy Wikipedia.
Clicking on the caption will take you to the source of the image, where you can enlarge it.

A Birthday Party for King George III

Allan Ramsay, King George III

Loretta reports:

One of my go-to sources is Hone's Every-Day Book, a feast of historical information.  Published in two volumes, it offers an entry for each day of the year.  Some are long, some are short.  This is one of the sweeter and shorter ones.

~~~

June 4.

REMARKABLE CELEBRATION

This was king George the Third's birthday, and therefore during his reign was kept at court, and in many towns throughout the kingdom.

At Bexhill, on the coast of Sussex, where the inhabitants, who scarcely exceed 800, are remarkable for longevity and loyalty, on the 4th of June, 1819, they celebrated the king’s birth-day in an appropriate and remarkable manner.  Twenty-five old men, inhabitants of the parish, whose united ages amounted to 2025, averaging eighty-one each (the age of the king) dined together at the Bell inn, and passed the day in a cheerful and happy manner.  The dinner was set on table by fifteen other old men, also of the above parish, whose united ages amounted to seventy-one each, and six others, whose ages amounted to sixty-one each, rang the bells on the occasion.  the old men dined at one o’clock, and at half-past two a public dinner was served up to the greater part of the respectable inhabitants to the number of eight-one, who were also the subscribers to the old men’s dinner.  The assembly room was decorated with several appropriate devices; and some of the old men, with the greater part of the company, enjoyed themselves to a late hour.

George IV is Fat (a silly historical video from Horrible Histories)

Susan reporting:

What better way to ease into a long weekend than with a new video from the Horrible Histories?

If ever there were a monarch ripe for ridicule, it must be George IV (1762-1830.) The circumstances of his life would have tried a much better man, and even as kings go, George was somewhat lacking. While he did serve twice as Prince Regent for the ailing George III, the truth was that the father lived for so long that the son himself was long past his own prime by the time he became king. The younger George destroyed his promise as well as his once-handsome person by self-centered, sybaritic excess, and his reign lasted a mere ten years before he, too, died.

The satiric cartoonists of the day found a ready subject in George's womanizing, laziness, indulgences, and, of course, his ever-burgeoning girth. It does say something that one of the most famous quotations about him (spoken by his one-time friend Beau Brummell) – "Alvanley, who is your fat friend?" – is a dismissive dig at his weight. Clearly, if Prinny were alive and celebrating Labor Day weekend, he'd be the first one standing with an empty plate at the barbecue. O.K., not likely, but fun to imagine.

Enjoy your weekend!

Click here for another Horrible Histories video featuring the Prince Regent.

Margaret Nicholson Attacks the King with a Dessert Knife, 1786

Susan reporting:

Assassination is a constant concern for any monarch. Queen Victoria was particularly fearful of being killed, and with good reason, too, after surviving numerous attempts on her life. In the days before high-tech security, English kings and queens were much more accessible to their people, and often moved freely among them.

On August 2, 1786, King George III was climbing from his carriage before St. James's Palace when a neatly dressed, middle-aged woman approached him with a scrolled paper. Assuming she posed no threat and that the paper was simply a petition, the king accepted her offering. As he did, the woman lunged at him, stabbing at him twice with a pearl-handled dessert knife. The assailant's jabs were ineffectual and the blade too blunt to cause any injury, and the king's guards quickly drew her away.

Margaret Nicholson (c.1750-1828) would hardly fit anyone's image of a royal assassin. A woman of a respectable working-class family who had been a servant in genteel households, Margaret was earning her living as a mantua-maker at the time of the attack. Newspapers reported that she had been dismissed from her last position after an unhappy love affair with a fellow-servant; as is often declared with women, a broken heart supposedly unhinged her mind. While no one who knew her had seen any earlier evidence of madness, a search of her rooms after the attack discovered delusional letters that made many wild claims, including that she was the rightful heir to the throne. In custody she protested that she'd only wished to frighten the king, not hurt him.

The king himself believed her. He spoke in her defense even as she was captured: "The poor creature is mad," he famously said. "Do not hurt her, for she has not hurt me." His words were viewed as a sign of wondrous mercy coming from a king, and they likely saved Margaret's life as well. (It's tempting to see the king's mercy as a kind of empathetic premonition, since two years later in 1788 he, too, would be wrestling with his own "madness".) Even an unsuccessful regicide was high treason, and carried a sentence of death. But thanks to the king's intercession, Margaret was declared too insane to stand trial, and was instead committed to live out her life at Bedlam Hospital.

The reaction to the decision was curiously mixed. Even as some newspapers congratulated the king on his escape from death and praised his forgiveness, other critics in this revolutionary age (the Americans had recently won their rebellion, and within a decade the French would have a revolution, too), viewed the king's clemency as fishy royal finagling, a tyrant bypassing the rightful due process of law. By the end of the century, Margaret's case had set the precedent for the Criminal Lunatics Act of 1800, which introduced the concept of "not guilty by reason of insanity." The attempted assassination also inspired the young poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. While still a university student in 1810, Shelley collaborated with a friend on a collection of political poems, Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson, that purported to be written by Margaret and only published after her death.

But in 1810, Margaret was still alive in Bedlam Hospital. Margaret spent the final forty-two years – nearly half of her long life – as an inmate there. Consider William Hogarth's depiction of Bedlam, above right, from 1734, where the ill-treated, manacled patients are treated as amusing diversions by visiting spectators, and it almost makes execution appear the more merciful choice.

Top: Margaret Nicholson attempting to assassinate his Majesty King George III by Carington Bowles, published 1786.
Bottom: "The Rake in Bedlam": from The Rake's Progress by William Hogarth, 1734.