Getting Warmer, 18th Century Style

Susan reports:

It's December, almost winter. As temperatures begin to drop in earnest, most of us fight the urge to tweak the thermostat up another notch, and add one more layer of fleece or flannel instead.  

But despite what L.L.Bean may tell us, layering is hardly new. Quilted clothing has been used for warmth and comfort since ancient times.  Few examples, however, achieve the style of this gentleman's silk and wool waistcoat with sleeves, replicated by the tailors of Colonial Williamsburg.

Such a waistcoat would have been worn over a white linen shirt by an 18th c. English gentleman relaxing before his fire, or informally receiving friends at home.  On a cold day, he might also wear it layered beneath another,

more structured coat for an extra bit of warmth.  There's a certain cavalier nonchalance to the waistcoat: what's more impractical (and therefore, more insanely fashionable) around a dish of tea or a glass of Madeira than pure white silk?

 

I love the double-breasted piece at the throat that can be buttoned against the chill, or folded into a stylish lapel. The cuffs, too, could be buttoned back, and there are deep pockets with flaps for tucking away a letter or snuff-box.  As with so much bespoke clothing, the details are amazing: all that diamond-patterned quilting is entirely stitched by hand, and the matching "death's head" buttons (thirty-two, by my rough count) are wrapped thread over a shaped wooden core. 

Can you imagine a more elegant alternative to a sweatshirt?

Men Behaving Badly: Scrope Davies

Loretta reports:

"When the Lent term of 1808 at Cambridge began, Byron was unable to return by reason of his debts. Scrope [Davies] chose not to do so and the two friends plunged into a life of dissipation in London. In Byron's case it was chiefly whoring and gambling; in Scrope's gambling and drinking. In his 'Detached Thoughts' Byron recalled one of Scropes more noteworthy achievements:

One night, Scrope Davies at a gaming house...being tipsy as he usually was at the Midnight hour, and having lost monies, was in vain intreated by his friends, one degree less intoxicated than himself, to come or go home. In despair, he was left to himself, and to the demons of the dice-box. Next day, being visited, about two of the Clock by some friends just risen with a severe headache and empty pockets (who had left him losing at four or five in the morning), he was found in a sound sleep, without a night-cap, and not particularly encumbered with bed-cloathes: a Chamber-pot stood by his bed-side, brim-full of--Bank Notes! all won, God knows how, and crammed, Scrope knew not where; but there they were, all good legitimate notes, and to the amount of some thousand pounds."

T.A.J. Burnett, The Rise & Fall of a Regency Dandy: The Life and Times of Scrope Berdmore Davies

Men Behaving Badly: Sir Charles Sedley

Susan reports:

Welcome back from the holiday!

My most recent books have been 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 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, and hold on to your coffee cup.

Thanksgiving Break

Loretta reports:

Over the next few days, like many of our U.S. readers, Susan & I will be getting ready for the Thanksgiving holiday. Unlike most of you, in between the cooking and eating we'll also be working on the revisions of our books. That's why we're taking a Thanksgiving break from the blog.

Meanwhile, I humbly suggest you stop by Plimoth Plantation. The visit, physical or online, may help recharge your Thanksgiving batteries. You can find out what the English settlers were thankful for and what they ate at that gathering in 1621, and many other interesting things, including the fact that no, they didn't look like the Pilgrims you think you knew.

Here's Winslow's description (in modern English) of what happened:

Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after have a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the company almost a week, at which time amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest King Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain, and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.

Here you can find out what he might have sounded like.

If you're feeling especially nerdy, you might want to tackle Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation.

We'll return to our regularly scheduled blogging next Monday, when you can expect more weird and wonderful historical nerdiness.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Pins & Pinning

Susan reports:

The only time most modern people have any contact with a straight pin is trying to wrestle one free from the packaging of a new dress shirt. But to an 18th c. lady, the straight pin wasn't a nuisance.  It was a necessity.

Not only were pins used in sewing and mending, but they were also employed to fasten clothes together: a gentleman's neckcloth, the front bodice of a lady's gown (as shown in the detail, below right, of the gown seen here earlier this week), even a baby's diapers.  Pins were most commonly purchased in a milliner's shop (see Loretta's blog.)

The picture, above left, shows a selection of replica 18th c. pins: the smaller ones are for sewing, while the longer ones are "dressing pins."  

The dressing pins have the larger heads, formed

as the wire is twisted around the unsharpened end.  The gold-toned pins are made of brass, with the advantage that they did not rust; the silver-toned ones are steel, which holds a sharper point than the brass, but rusts.

Also in the above photo is a reproduction of an original paper packet that would have held two or three dozen pins. Henry Halles was one of the largest pin manufacturers in 18th c. England; the industry was centered in the London neighborhood of Whitechapel.

Pins were so essential to the 18th c. lady that the British trade embargoes against American colonists during the Revolution made their price skyrocket in Boston and other colonial cities. Ladies could live without tea.  Pins were quite another matter.  Abigail Adams famously wrote from Massachusetts to her husband John in London in 1775, begging him to "purchase me a bundle of pins & put them in your trunk for me. The cry for pins [in Boston] is so great, that what I used to buy for seven shillings and sixpence, are now twenty shillings, and not to be had for that."

Many thanks to tailor Mark Hutter of Colonial Williamsburg for both his pins, and his considerable knowledge.