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Monthly Archives: March 2006

I approach writing my weekly Risky Regencies posts as I do my fiction writing: I let my mind wander and seize on something that seems like it might go somewhere. Usually, it works, at least enough for me to get something tapped out on the keyboard.

But today? I am Tapped Out. I officially have NO IDEAS for this post. Which means, unfortunately for you all, I’ll have to let my mind wander as I type, not just show the finished product.

Yesterday, my son, my father and I went to the Bronx Zoo, which is truly spectacular. It made me think about what zoos were like in the Regency–pretty pathetic things, I think, and I am pretty sure they were called “menageries,” not zoos, and can you imagine how poorly the animals were treated? Horses were treated well, they had to carry the Men on their Important Hunting Expeditions, after all, but other animals did not get very good treatment. No wonder our heroines always befriend cats and dogs and the like.

I was also thinking about what made a plot good–sure, there’s that catch in the throat when you’re not quite sure the author is going to live up to the expectations of a romance, and are they really going to get together, because sheesh, it sure seems like there’s no way they can get out of this mess, not without a lot of deus ex machina. And when they do, you’re almost pathetically grateful to the author for making us breathe easier. Mary Balogh is the queen of this, and she makes my heart stop almost every time I read one of her books. Who does that for you?

And the weather–our heroes and heroines did not have the benefit of central air, heat, or Polartec fabric. It’s gorgeous here on the East Coast now, and the crocuses are starting to spring up and the weather will be in the 70s today, and it fills one (meaning me) with a feeling of enthusiasm and joy. I wonder if our heroes and heroines felt the same, only moreso, because they were confined inside their drafty houses? Or did they combat their winter lassitude by doing all sorts of outdoorsy things that put a sparkle in their eyes and a healthy pink blush in their cheeks? Did they even talk about seasonal depression?

Now, here’s the class participation part: When your mind wanders, what does it wonder about? What authors make your breath catch in your throat? And is it Spring where you live? If so, what’s the part you like the best about Spring?

Megan
www.meganframpton.com


Greetings! It is I, Bertram St. James, delighted to be here (as always). I know you Twenty-First Century folk do not much care to answer my questions, but I will nonetheless continue to ask them. Such as:

1. How can the United States of America call itself a republic, and yet have a queen? And what sort of a queenly name is Latifah, anyway?

2. Why would anyone pay eighty dollars to buy Obsession? Is not Obsession something one comes by naturally, and occasionally pays large sums to be rid of?

3. In my day, musicians had names like John and Nathaniel. Why do musicians today have names like N Sync and Eminem? And why do they play no instruments?

4. Speaking of musicians, if M.T.V. truly stands for “Musical TeleVision”, why does it play no music?

If anyone can explain to me the answers to these conundrums, I will be most grateful.

Yours as ever, and exquisite as always,

Bertie the Beau

Alfie Dolittle, who sings this in MY FAIR LADY, definitely would have agreed with Cobbett’s analysis of why beer is better than tea.

Put it to the test with a lean hog: give him the fifteen bushels of malt, and he will repay you in ten score of bacon or thereabouts. But give him the 730 tea messes, or rather begin to give them to him, and give him nothing else, and he is dead with hunger, and bequeaths you his skeleton, at the end of about seven days.

Proof positive. At least, that beer can fatten you like a hog. Did we really need Mr. Cobbett to tell us that?

I used to be exclusively a wine drinker, but I fell in love with English ale during the three years my husband and I were on international assignment in England. The first time we walked across the road to the Fox and Hounds, our neighborhood pub in Funtington, West Sussex, my husband ordered a pint of Ruddles Best Bitter. Intrigued by the deep color, I took a sip. He had to order himself another. Some time after that, we joined the Campaign for Real Ale and used their Good Beer Guide and Good Pub Food Guide to help us plan our weekend excursions.

Now I no longer have any excuse for the mistake of having a Regency hero dash angrily into a pub and order lager. (I cringe a little when I read such scenes, but won’t go as far as book-flinging.) During the Regency, they would have drunk “real ale”. Here’s CAMRA’s definition:

Real ale is beer brewed from traditional ingredients, matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide.

Real ale is also known as ‘cask-conditioned beer’, ‘real cask ale’, ‘real beer’ and ‘naturally conditioned beer’.

Here are a few of the terms to describe varieties and styles of real ale:

  • bitters: well-hopped, copper-coloured, stronger versions are called “best” or “special”
  • pale ales: premium bitters that are not pale, just lighter than brown ales
  • India Pale Ale: pale ales adapted for transport to India, stronger, more heavily hopped
  • brown ale: reddish-brown to dark brown, somewhat sweet
  • mild: usually dark brown, lightly hopped
  • stout: extra-dark, almost black, strong flavored
  • porter: also dark, but lighter-bodied than stout.

Here’s one of my favorites: Morland’s Old Speckled Hen (the website explains how this ale was named). Fortunately for me, it is not impossible to find on this side of the pond.

Have you tried real ales? If so, what are your favorites? If not, it’s worth trying if only to better one’s understanding of Regency beverages. Anything for research, I say. 🙂

Elena, beer connoisseur and tea slut, hoping Cara will not cut my acquaintance 🙂

LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, an RT Reviewers’ Choice Award nominee
www.elenagreene.com


William Cobbett, round about 1821, wrote:

The drink, which has come to supply the place of beer has, in general, been tea. It is notorious, that tea has no useful strength in it; that it contains nothing nutricious; that it, besides being good for nothing, has badness in it, because it is well known to produce want of sleep in many cases, and in all cases to shake and weaken the nerves.

Okay, so far, I slightly agree with Cobbett. Lack of sleep — yeah, if you drink more than you’re used to, or you drink late in the day, it can cause insomnia! But “shake and weaken the nerves”?

Cobbett continues:

It is, in fact, a weaker kind of laudanum, which enlivens for a moment and deadens afterwards.

Laudanum, which is opium dissolved in alcohol, being compared to tea??? Dude, what have YOU been drinking???

It is impossible to make a fire, boil water, make the tea, drink it, wash up the things, sweep up the fire-place and put all to rights again in a less space of time, upon an average, than two hours. . . . Needs there any thing more to make us cease to wonder at seeing labourers’ children with dirty linen and holes in the heels of their stockings?

There you have it, kiddies! The poor are wretched not for any of the commonly held reasons (e.g. because they are poor, or because they are lazy, or because no one who labours in the fields from dawn to dusk has time or energy to darn stockings) but because they drink too much TEA!!!!

You heard it here first.

Cara
Cara King, Tea Drinker Extraordinaire
for more weird period details, see www.caraking.com

Posted in Regency, Research | Tagged , | 7 Replies

Last week, I started a new job. I think it will be all right, but right now I’m completely stressed out, trying to learn new computer databases, new procedures, and still find time to write at home! By coincidence, I’ve also been reading a book titled “Ladies-in-Waiting: From the Tudors to the Present Day” by Anne Somerset, detailing one of the few careers open to women (upper-class women, anyway) during the Regency–royal service.

Chapter Eight concerns the “Later Hanoverian Court”. In the summer of 1761, it was announced that the new king, George III, would marry his cousin Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The king’s mentor, Lord Bute, was immediately bombarded with requests for places in her household for wives and daughters. On July 23, Horace Walpole wrote to Sir Horace Mann, “The new Queen’s family consists of…the Duchess of Ancaster, Mistress of the Robes and first lady of the Bedchamber; the others are the Duchess of Hamilton, Lady Effingham, Lady Northumberland, Lady Weymouth, and Lady Bolingbroke” (he missed one addition, Lady Egremont). The Countess of Dalkeith had angrily turned down a position when she heard she would have to work with the Duchess of Hamilton, who had been one of the famous Gunning sisters. The Duchess of Bedford was also insulted–she was left off the list altogether. The husbands of both these ladies soon went into Opposition. Coincidence? I think not. 🙂

Princess Charlotte herself had hoped to bring with her a large retinue from her own country, as royal brides had in the past (Catherine of Aragon, for example, brought many Spanish retainers with her when she married Prince Arthur Tudor). But the king decreed “the utmost she can bring is one or two femmes de chambre whom I own I hope will be quiet people, for by my own experience I have seen these women meddle more than they ought to do.” So, Charlotte brought two German ladies, Johanna Haggerdorn and Juliana Schwellenborg, who served as joint Keepers of the Robes. Haggerdorn proved to be ” a placid amiable ladylike woman”, but Schwellenborg was a different kettle of fish. In 1765, the king, irritated by her intrusiveness and arrogance, was only dissuaded from sending her home by the persistent entreaties of his wife! Among the other ladies she was seen as a petty tyrant. Novelist Fanny Burney, Haggerdorn’s successor, wrote that S. was “noxious and persecuting.” The Queen, however, adored her, calling her a “faithful and truly devoted…servant.”

Perhaps one reason for the queen’s dependence on S. was the fact that she was never really at ease with her sophisticated English ladies (and not encouraged to develop close friendships by her possessive husband!). The Duchess of Ancaster stayed at her post until her death, but in 1784 the queen fell out with the Duchess of Arrgyll (formerly Hamilton), who was flirtatious and unpunctual, as well as the mother of a scandalous daughter. The Countess of Northumberland (a “vulgar woman” who liked “show and crowds and junketing”) left way back in 1770. And Lady Bolingbroke had to leave when she and her husband divorced. I can’t imagine these ladies partiuclarly mourned leaving court (except for the chances for family advancement and prestige), as the king and queen were known to be deadly dull (until the king went crazy, that is!).

There are so many interesting things to say on this topic, I may have to continue next week! In the meantime, how do you think YOU would have fared as lady-in-waiting?

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