Friday Video: The Uniforms of the Household Cavalry

Susan reporting,

Since the post earlier this week featuring the frock coat worn by the newly married and newly minted Duke of Sussex was so popular, I thought I'd share a video with more royal uniforms and history. In addition to a discussion of the various kits of the Household Cavalry (the Life Guards and The Blues and Royals), there's information about the Cavalry's musicians and their splendidly gaudy gold uniforms that date back to Charles II, as well as the Cavalry horses - including the very large horses who support the double kettle drums during parade.

Another thanks to historian, author, and historic paint consultant Patrick Baty for suggesting this video.

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The Duke of Sussex, Then and Now

Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex

Loretta reports:

As everybody who follows royal doings now knows, the Queen has made Prince Harry the Duke of Sussex. This may puzzle some people who watched the video I posted not long ago, The Last of the Dukes. There we were told that we could not look forward to any new dukes.

However, a royal duke is a different article. He’s a member of the royal family who happens to be a prince, upon whom the sovereign has bestowed the title—as the Queen did in the cases of her sons as well as her grandsons. For further details, such as how long the title remains royal and where these royal dukes stand in precedence, I recommend this Wikipedia article. It offers a fairly easy-to-understand and, I think, fascinatingly nerdy account.

As a nerdy history girl, what I found interesting, was this particular choice of title. The last Duke of Sussex was a gentleman I wrote about last October, where I quoted a description of him as “the most consistently Liberal-minded person of the first half of the nineteenth century.” You can read more about him here at the Georgian Era blog.

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex

Of course I have no idea why the Queen chose the Sussex title for Prince Charles’s second son. However, in light of the choice of bride; the wedding celebration, including the clergy and guests; and the causes the gentleman has espoused, I like to think of it as a nod to her progressive ancestor as well as to the new duke and the future we hope for him (excluding the problematic relationships with women, of course).

Images: Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, by Guy Head, National Portrait Gallery NPG 648.

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, speaks during the opening ceremonies of the 2017 Invictus Games (edited), Creative Commons License, Author DoD News.

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What the Groom Wore: Prince Harry's Frock Coat

Susan reporting,

Like millions of other people willing to get up extra early on a Saturday morning, Loretta and I have been enthralled by this week's royal wedding of Ms. Meghan Markle and His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Wales. One thing that fascinated us the most was the dashing dark uniform that Prince Harry chose to wear to his wedding.

The long coat is described as a frock coat, and is particular to the Household Cavalry, which is formed of two regiments - The Life Guards and The Blues and Royals - while another version with slightly different cuffs is also worn by the Foot Guards. (The style of the knee-length frock coat evolved from men's 19thc fashion, with additional inspiration from the Ottomans.) It was worn in "Undress" instead of Full Dress, most likely because the choice of Windsor Castle made the wedding a less formal affair. This was not a state occasion, nor will Harry be king. Harry's brother William, Duke of Cambridge, wore the same uniform for the ceremony, and miniature adaptations were created for the bride's page boys.

Both brothers' uniforms were created by traditional military tailors Dege & Skinner on Savile Row, and were said to have taken over 100 hours to stitch and tailor by hand. Details are everything, even in a seemingly monochrome coat: the intricate interwoven braid on the sleeves (which was barely visible on television) took a single skilled craftsman over a week to create. The frock coat's primary fabric is doeskin, a fine satin-weave woolen cloth, and the lining is silk.

The frock coat is closed with hidden hooks instead of buttons. Many Americans were perplexed by what they saw as "ribbon bows" on the front of the jacket. This is instead a braiding made of black mohair, and is unique to the Household Cavalry and the Life Guards. While the braid loops appear to fasten to the olivets (the toggle-style buttons on the far sides of the chest), they are purely decorative.

The illustrations, right, are from Dress Regulations for Officers of the Army 1900, and show the approved pattern of the Frock Coat of the Household Cavalry. The illustrations show the details of the frock coat that weren't visible in the wedding broadcast (click on the image to enlarge.)

While the very dark navy color made for a striking contrast to Meghan's bright white gown, it's not simply a style choice, but a uniform that Harry has earned the right to wear. He served as a Captain in The Blues and Royals, and after retiring from active duty in 2015, he received the honorary military title of Major from the Queen, as signified by the crown on his shoulder. According to Kensington Palace, he also requested and received express permission from the Queen to wear the uniform on his wedding day.

Rumor has it that the Queen also bestowed a certain leniency to Harry in another way. Officers in the Army are required to be clean-shaven, and there was speculation that Harry would shave away his now-familiar beard for the wedding. The fact that he didn't suggests that the Queen gave him special permission to keep the whiskers.

One more detail: did you notice that both brothers wore silver spurs as members of the cavalry?

Many thanks to historian, author, and historic paint consultant Patrick Baty for his always-excellent assistance with this blog post. 

Upper left: Neil Hall/Pool/Reuters
Lower left: PA/UK Images

Friday Video: The Fife Tiara, A Wedding Gift for a Royal Princess in 1889

Susan reporting,

With the next British royal wedding fast approaching, the speculation grows daily as to what exactly American Meghan Markle will wear to walk down the aisle with Prince Henry of Wales. Yes, the wedding dress is the greatest mystery - but right after that comes the question of the bride's headdress. Will Meghan go for something simple like a wreathe of flowers, or will she go the full princess-to-be route with a glittering tiara?

The breathtaking tiara featured here already comes with a royal heritage. Created in the 1880s by jeweler Oscar Massin, the Fife Tiara contains approximately 200 carats of diamonds set in gold and silver. It was a wedding gift to Queen Victoria's granddaughter Princess Louise of Wales, below, daughter of Edward VII,  from her new husband, the Duke of Fife; that dukedom was a wedding gift to the groom.

Today the tiara is valued at 1.4 million pounds.  Accepted by the government in lieu of taxes, it was permanently allocated to Historic Royal Palaces for display at Kensington Palace. It can be seen there now as part of the Victoria Revealed exhibition.

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Friday Video: The Countess of Provence's Fabulous Jewel Cabinet, 1787

Susan reporting,

In this era of mass-produced, particle board furniture that's bolted together and has the lifespan of a loaf of bread, it's almost impossible to imagine the level of craftsmanship, skill, and pride that went into creating something like the jewel-cabinet shown in this video. This exquisite piece was made in the 1780s by the cabinetmaker Jean-Henri Riesener for Marie-Josephine-Louise of Savoy, who married Louis XVI's younger brother, the Comte de Provence (and future Louis XVIII.)

Although the Comte and Comtesse were able to flee to the safety of the Austrian Netherlands in 1791 and therefore escape the guillotine, all their belongings were confiscated by the state. Originally the jewel-cabinet was put on public display like much of the rest of the royal furniture, but as the government's funds began to dwindle, the cabinet eventually joined the pieces that were put up for sale. (In an earlier post, I shared one of Marie-Antoinette's armchairs that ended up in the home of an American Founding Father.)

The cabinet was offered to Napoleon, who declined to purchase it, preferring to have new designs and decor to reflect his empire rather than such reminders of the ancien regine. In Britain, however, George IV, however, had no such qualms, and eventually bought the cabinet for 400 guineas in 1825. It has remained in the Royal Collection ever since: a true masterpiece.

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Friday Video: The Wedding of Princess Elizabeth & Philip Mountbatten, 1947

Susan reporting,

This is for all of you out there who are engrossed in The Crown on Netflix. Here's a short newsreel segment with the highlights of the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten on November 20, 1947. As grainy as this black & white footage is today, how exciting it must have been to people in the cinema in those pre-television days - and how very different from the second-by-second broadcast of the last royal wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

A Visit with the late Duke of Sussex

Tomb of Duke of Sussex at Kensal Green Cemetery

Loretta reports:

In my recent post about London’s Kensal Green Cemetery, I mentioned the Duke of Sussex (1773-1843). This son of George III made the place fashionable by deciding to be buried there rather than at Windsor. In life, as in death, Prince Augustus Frederick went his own way.

Though he was a big guy—six foot three and burly—he wasn't hale and hearty. Yet the asthma that plagued him also helped make him “the most consistently Liberal-minded person of the first half of the nineteenth century.” His brothers championed the Whigs in youth, but mainly in rebellion against their father. When he no longer had power over them, their politics went the other way. Not so with Prince Augustus.

Thanks to the asthma, he spent much of his early life abroad and had no military career. He matured free of the influences that shaped his brothers’ politics. Equally important, he had far more time to cultivate his mind. He became a person who supported abolition of the slave trade, Catholic emancipation, parliamentary reform, and many other progressive ideas. These views won him the hostility of, basically, the entire Establishment, including his brothers. They cost him financially, too.

On the other hand, he wasn’t unlike his brothers when it came to women. At age twenty, he fell madly in love with Lady Augusta Murray, daughter of the Earl of Dunmore, and married her, in contravention of the Royal Marriages Act, which required the monarch’s consent. King George III refused, and a decree was issued, annulling the marriage.

Nonetheless, the prince stuck with his woman...until he had to choose between getting the title Duke of Sussex—with £12,000 per annum—and her and their two children. In 1801 he chose the title and money. By 1806 he was bringing legal action to prevent her calling herself the Duchess of Sussex. (She was given a lesser title instead.) By 1809 he took the children to live with him. Still, he didn’t remarry until 1830, after she was dead. The second marriage, to Lady Cecilia Buggin, was problematic, too, until Queen Victoria recognized it in 1840 and made the lady the Duchess of Inverness.

Duke of Sussex , Knight of the Order of the Thistle

The Queen adored her uncle: “When he was dying she drove down in tears to Kensington Palace in an open carriage to inquire for him, although she was hourly expecting the birth of her third child.”

He went his own way in death, too, and it wasn't only in the choice of burial site. In keeping with his very progressive views on dissection, he gave directions in his will for his body to be opened and studied “in the interests of science.” In keeping with his ideals, his is a modest tomb. (So modest that we apparently forgot to take a picture of it.)

For the bulk of this post, and the quotations, I’m indebted to Roger Fulford’s Royal Dukes. When online sources proved unsatisfying—especially regarding the duke’s personality—I remembered this very enjoyable book.

Images: The tomb of Prince Augustus Frederick, Kensal Green Cemetery
Photo by Stephencdickson, Creative Commons license

G.E. Madeley, Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex wearing the robes of a Knight Companion of the Order of the Thistle.

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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.

Wills and Married Women in the 1800s

Loretta reports:

Certain of my early 1800s characters—the heroines, usually—will refer in some way to their lack of legal power. Yes, we know they couldn’t vote. But it’s hard for us to grasp just how little control they had over their lives. This excerpt from Tomlins’s Law Dictionary, 1835 edition, dealing with wills, is only one of many I could present. A glance at Caroline Norton’s situation offers several examples of the difficulties women faced.

Even Queen Victoria believed she ought to submit to her husband’s will…to a point. (For an eye-opening, beautifully written exploration of that marriage, I recommend Gillian Gill’s We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals).

Married women & wills

Married women & wills

Image: Rowlandson, “The Wedding,” from The English Dance of Death 1815

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Friday Video: Jewelry & Its Stories at the V&A

Loretta reports:

A while back, Susan/Isabella posted a blog about a jewelry reward the Prince Regent gave to the women he’d entrusted with keeping his daughter, the Princess Charlotte, from running amok.

Today’s video spotlights these peridots as well as revealing the letter’s contents—and can’t you just picture the conditions under which the letter was written? In a few cryptic words, the writer conjures quite a scene—at least in this writer’s mind.

This isn’t the V&A jewelry collection's only story. The video features several other pieces, including some worn by Catherine the Great. I was particularly intrigued by the tale of how one modern piece was created.

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Friday Video: Grace Kelly's Royal Wedding, 1956

Isabella reporting,

Since June is the month of weddings, this seemed like the perfect Friday video for the season. The wedding of Oscar-winning American actress Grace Kelly to Ranier III, Prince of Monaco, had everything that celebrity-watchers crave: Hollywood and European royalty, a beautiful bride who gave up her movie-star existence for the love of her handsome prince. The fairy-tale analogies were unavoidable, and the world couldn't get enough. Beneath the near-constant glare of media attention, the two were wed in Monaco in a civil service on April 18, 1956, and in a religious ceremony a day later on April 19.

This short newsreel feature from British Pathé captures both the glamour and the frenzy that surrounded the wedding. What struck me most about it, however, was the breathtaking beauty of Grace Kelly, both as a woman and as a bride. She's also remarkably solemn, and I hope for her sake that later that day she was as happy and joyful as a bride should be, once she and her new husband were alone together away from the cameras.

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Queen Elizabeth II Turns 90

Loretta reports:

Today is Queen Elizabeth II’s 90th birthday. She is the longest-reigning British monarch, surpassing Queen Victoria as of last September. Though she isn’t our queen, we Yanks find her interesting for all kinds of reasons. Certainly many of us love the pageantry associated with royals, the palaces, the golden coaches, the ancient rituals.

I’m deeply interested because the monarchy is the heart of that world of noble men and women who people my fiction. The court, those who make up the upper ranks of society, how one addresses this person, who’s a peer and who isn’t, who inherits what—learning about and trying to execute correctly these and numerous other mysteries of a completely foreign world, are part of the torture and joy of what I do.

But the royals I study are long gone. Queen Elizabeth is one of a vanishing breed. She's the living model of a monarch, the modern version, yes, apparently much saner than some of her ancestors; and there she is, on TV, still doing her Queen thing, as she’s done my whole life, with dignity and grace and what seems to be good humor.

So I thought we'd mark her milestone birthday with this set of photos of her life.

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From the Archives: King William III's Private Place

Loretta reports:

State apartments are all very well, and I can be easily awestruck by, say, a magnificent painted ceiling, or candle stands that tower over my head.

But the most fun for me in touring a historic site is looking into the less public spaces:  kitchens, for instance.  Wine cellars.  Bathrooms.

Previously we looked into Queen Caroline’s (Caroline of Ansbach 1683-1737) bathroom at Hampton Court Palace.

Nowhere in my perambulations, however, did I come upon the King’s bathroom.  I did find his lavatory, though.

King William III (1650–1702) was not an extrovert.  He liked to be alone or with small groups of friends.  One of the places where he could have some privacy was what’s called the King’s Closet.  Here he’d meet with the privileged few and work at his modest-looking walnut desk.  His long-case clock nearby needs to be wound only once a year—highly advanced technology for the time.

And in this private area, not far away, and in plain sight between the jib doors* is King William's own actual close stool.  According to the brochure, “the Groom of the Stool was a senior courtier who not only ran the Bedchamber department but also had to personally attend the king on his ‘stool.’”

I leave you to surmise what attendance entailed.

*"In Architecture, a door so constructed that it stands flush with the adjoining face of the wall on both sides, and without dressings or architraves. Thus it appears to form part of the wall, the intention of a jib door being simply to disguise the aperture." —A Dictionary of Science, Literature, & Art, 1875

Queen Victoria's Stormy Wedding Day

Cruikshank, Very Unpleasant Weather

Loretta reports:

This week in history—
Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha on 10 February 1840. I used the event, and the bad weather preceding it, as a backdrop to a short story.

“The weather during the preceding night was more boisterous than any we have experienced during the winter.  It “blew great guns from ten o’clock until sunrise when—
      The dawn was overcast, the morning lower’d,
      And heavily in clouds brought on the day,
      The great, th’important day,
on which were to be celebrated the nuptials of our maiden Sovereign and Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg.

It continued to rain almost without intermission until noon, when the weather partially cleared up and continued fine, but threatening during the remainder of the day.”— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, 1840

The detailed account of the wedding begins here. And you can find my other blogs on the subject here and here. If you search “white wedding dress,” you’ll find posts explaining that Queen Victoria was not the first bride to wear white.

Image: George Cruikshank, Very Unpleasant Weather,1835, courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.

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.

Mr. Curtis's Acoustic Chair

Curtis's Acoustic Chair

Loretta reports:

While researching another topic entirely, I came upon Mr. Curtis’s Acoustic Chair. This is another of the items that were familiar enough to people at the time to become the subject of witticisms, while being completely new to me.

“Mr. Curtis, about 1830, by the aid of several mechanics, brought out his acoustic chair, which was stated to possess such wondrous power, that His Majesty could sit in his palace, at Windsor, and hear communications from his ministers at Whitehall. Whether our present Sovereign does not require her ministers to keep at such a distance, and, therefore, has not patronized Mr. Curtis's acoustic chair, or whatever other cause may have operated, probably will never be known, but that gentleman's name does not appear to be continued in the list of Her Majesty's household.”— William Wright, A Few Minutes' Advice to Deaf Persons (1839)

Mr. William Mullinger Higgins’s Philosophy of Sound and Musical Composition (1838), whose relevant pages I show above, contains the shortest and easiest-to-understand explanation I came upon.

You can learn more of the technical details in the Mechanics’ Magazine of January 14, 1837 here.

Another illustration (of the chair at home) and explanation appeared in The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction on 18 February 1837 here.

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A Walk In London In 1807

Cheapside 1813

Loretta reports:

I’ve offered excerpts from Robert Southey's Letters from England* before (here). This one notes interesting pedestrian behavior. Also, those of us who lament the destruction of Carlton House will learn that not everybody loved it.

The distance [westward to St. James’s Palace]was considerable: the way, after getting into the main streets, tolerably straight. There were not many passers in the by-streets; but when I reached Cheapside the crowd completely astonished me. On each side of the way were two uninterrupted streams of people, one going east, the other west. At first I thought some extraordinary occasion must have collected such a concourse; but I soon perceived it was only the usual course of business. They moved on in two regular counter currents, and the rapidity with which they moved was as remarkable as their numbers ... Nobody was loitering to look at the beautiful things in the shop windows; none were stopping to converse, every one was in haste, yet no one in a hurry; the quickest possible step seemed to be the natural pace. The carriages were numerous in proportion, and were driven with answerable velocity.

If possible, I was still more astonished at the opulence and splendor of the shops: drapers, stationers, confectioners, pastry cooks, seal-cutters, silver-smiths, booksellers, print-sellers, hosiers, fruiterers, china-sellers,—one close to another, without intermission, a shop to every house, street after street, and mile after mile; the articles themselves so beautiful, and so beautifully arranged, that if they who passed by me had had leisure to observe any thing, they might have known me to be a foreigner by the frequent stands which I made to admire them. Nothing which I had seen in the country had prepared me for such a display of splendour ...
I went on to the palaces of the Prince of Wales, and of the King, which stand near each other in a street called Pall Mall. The game from whence this name is derived is no longer known in England.

The Prince of Wales's palace is no favourable specimen of English

Carlton House 1811

architecture. Before the house are thirty columns planted in a row, two and two, supporting nothing but a common entablature, which connects them. As they serve for neither ornament nor use, a stranger might be puzzled to know by what accident they came there; but the truth is, that these people have more money than taste, and are satisfied with any absurdity if it has but the merit of being new.

*Online at Internet Archive Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3.

Images:
Cheapside, from Ackermann's Repository for 1813
Carlton House, from Ackermann's Repository for 1811

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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.

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.

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.

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).

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A Glimpse at the Prince of Wales's Levee

Reception of the Moorish Ambassador

Loretta reports:

Adam Badeau wrote in the introduction to Aristocracy in London, “The first thing which more than any other, for an American, distinguishes English life and civilization from his own is—Aristocracy.  Even Europeans find the characteristics of the British people more affected by caste than is the case with the most enlightened races of the Continent, while the existence and influence of the institution are to a democrat, fresh from the equality and uniformity of social and political life in the New World, matter of unceasing marvel.”

He marveled and wrote in detail about his experiences during his twelve years in England. Following is an excerpt from his description of a royal levee. I found the bit about the gloves particularly interesting, as glove etiquette is not easy to pin down, since it changes over time and in different circumstances.

Levee description

Levee description

Image: John Seymour Lucas, The Reception of the Moorish Ambassador by Edward VII at St James's Palace (1902), courtesy the Royal Collection, via Wikipedia

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