Using random.com, Caroline Warfield has selected the winner of her giveaway from her visit with us on Sept 30. A-n-d the winner is: JUDY!! Caroline tells me Judy has already received her choice of either Dangerous Works or Dangerous Secrets, from Caroline’s “Dangerous”series. Congratulations, Judy!! Thanks for visiting us at Risky Regencies!
Yesterday was the 211th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. Shouldn’t we take a moment to remember it? Famously the battle where Admiral Nelson was killed, it is considered by historians to be hugely significant for a different reason –they cite the battle as the defining point in the power of the British Navy that dominated the 19th century world from then on.
As with most topics, once you poke the surface, there are so many directions to go in! For one, there is the fact that Nelson’s ship, H.M.S. Victory, 
is still a commissioned British Navy vessel, 257 years after she was built. She is the official flagship of the First Sea Lord of the British Navy. Has anyone visited or seen it?
Then, there are all the artistic renderings of the death of Nelson, a dramatic event guaranteed to capture the public’s imagination, as well as that of countless aspiring and established artists. Benjamin West’s painting is probably the most famous, with an epic feel in the lighting and composition. 
Accuracy was not important to West, who included portrayals of all sorts of people who weren’t actually there, not to mention that Nelson didn’t die quite so instantly. But the same flaws can be pointed to in most of the other paintings –the one by Devis, for instance, which shows Nelson dying below decks in a glow of unearthly light. They were never intended to be a historical record. 
Nelson himself was a fascinating character of our period. It just seems like we should give him a passing nod on this anniversary and consider the impact his life and leadership had on the rest of the century that followed after his death. Hats off!!
Do you ever catch yourself wishing you had a cook and a housekeeper? How about a lady’s maid to do your hair, or a footman you could send to the store? My schedule imploded this week thanks to a big surprise project at work, and once again I caught myself wishing for that kind of extra help.
My family has already pointed out to me that clones wouldn’t do. They would be just like me, and therefore likely to enthusiastically embrace new projects, rather than merely help complete the existing ones, so they would multiply the problem rather than solve it. (sigh)
If you could have whatever servants you wanted, which ones would you choose? Our modern conveniences have made some servant jobs obsolete –scullery maid, for instance. In a large Regency household, the scullery maid washed all the dishes, pots, and pans, not only for the family, but also those used by the other servants, all of whom outranked her. Today the dishwashing machine handles most of that.
I don’t think I need a butler, either, even though in the Regency the butler might reign supreme over all the other servants in a household where there wasn’t a steward over him. The butler managed the wine cellar, looked after the good silver cutlery and plate, and supervised all the male servants in the household under him, especially the footmen who served the family and guests at dinner. He sorted the mail (well, on second thought, that still might be useful to me), and welcomed or turned away the visitors who came to call. (We have few visitors. Could a butler manage my social media?)
The housekeeper was, in many households, 
of nearly equal rank with the butler, and often was trusted with keeping accounts and other management duties, which might have been shared with him. It was her job to supervise all the female servants under her, which would have included all the different types of maids (chamber maids, house maids, laundry maids) and sometimes, the cook, although male cooks were preferred in the wealthiest households, and in many homes the cook and housekeeper were equals.
A housekeeper and a couple of maids would be very welcome in my house –for paying the bills, keeping track of supplies, tending to my clothes, and getting rid of the unwanted stuff that accumulates around here! Most especially, for CLEANING. Everything! And a cook would be worth her weight in gold in my household.
Footmen. Well, who wouldn’t want a couple of those? In the Regency, footmen seeking positions often included their height as part of their qualifications. It seems that you wanted your footmen to come in matched sets, and the more handsome, the better! Experience, reliability and character were not enough. Footmen were handy because they could accompany you on errands and carry your packages, open doors, or if visiting, they would go to the door and present or leave your card. They could assist you in and out of you high carriage if you actually needed to get out. They waited on table at meals, and might be charged with answering the door if the butler was busy with other tasks. These days? I would love to send my footman to run my errands –think of all the time that would save!!
I admit I don’t have need for a coachman or a groom, thank you, but a gardener would be heavenly! For a place that has no lawn, our property needs an awful lot of pruning, weeding, and other kinds of yard care.
Of course, having servants meant having enough of the ready to cover the cost. During the Regency, there was a tax to be paid on male servants in addition to their wages, their room and board, and the additional expense of clothing them and providing for incidentals. (A candle to light their room at night? Extravagant!) That was one reason the more modest households often employed only female servants. Females were also paid lower wages, even for similar work. (Hmm, some things take a long time to change.) Servants also had to be paid “board wages” if the employer’s family was not in residence for any length of time.
Even other people’s servants cost you money in the Regency, for tips (called vails) were expected, especially if you were visiting. Do you remember to leave a tip for your chamber maid when you stay at a hotel? Well, the same was expected then when you stayed at someone’s country house, and not only for the maid who tended your room, but any other servant who gave you service, whether it was the butler, the groom, or the host’s valet on loan to help your husband with his attire. (A valet today would probably refuse to work with my husband’s wardrobe!) These costs had to be considered before accepting just any invitation.
Employers not only had to follow the terms of the employment contracts, but they had to observe the strict social pecking order among the servants themselves. Heaven forbid if you asked one servant to perform a task that was the duty of another!
If you’re interested in more information about types of servants, wages paid, and more, the blogpost at: https://countryhousereader.wordpress.com/2013/12/19/the-servant-hierarchy/ has some of that information and a good bibliography at the end of it. Another good article is at: http://rth.org.uk/regency-period/family-life/servants. Authors Donna Hatch and Geri Walton, among others, have done more in-depth articles on this and related topics. Thanks to my crazy week (and lack of servants), this had to be a quick one!!
Having some live-in “help” seems like such a great idea, until you begin to weigh the complications of it. I have a feeling the maids would take one look at my house and run away screaming. (or I would need a bunch of them!!)
Maybe I’m okay just muddling through on my own, thank you –unless a big enough chunk of cash comes along with the fantasy servants I’m wishing for!
How would you have fared in the Regency world having servants? Which ones would you still wish you could have today?
Wow, here it is the beginning of December –is anyone else wondering where November went? Sometimes, as the days fly by, I wonder if time seemed to go by this fast to people who lived during the Regency –or pick any given historical time period. With all our modern time-saving conveniences, how is it that we seem to live at a frenetic pace? (I know this isn’t only me!!) Is it because we try to cram more activity into our days, simply because we can? Has time actually sped up (a theory I read somewhere…)?? What do you think?
The reason I am ruminating on all of this today is because, even though I knew today was my day to blog here, I never did have time this week to choose a topic or prepare a post. So that’s the apology –I’m sorry I don’t have an actual post for today!! I did consider asking among my sister Riskies if anyone wanted to swap dates, but I never even got a chance to send out that appeal. This is the first time I’ve ever just completely missed posting here.
The promise is that in January I should have some real news to share! I’m looking forward to that. In the meantime, I want to wish all of you the most wonderful holidays –whatever you celebrate. It’s the season of light and love, that we should try to hold in our hearts and share with each other all year long. I think our world needs it more than ever!!!
In place of my post, here are two pictures of what has eaten up my extra time this week –things I’ve made for my church bazaar which is tomorrow. I am the coordinator for vendors and have been fielding phone calls and emails from them all week, while measuring and re-measuring the church hall and tweaking the floor lay-out to make sure there’s room for everyone besides all the tables full of church-made items. We set up today, so we’ll see! In the meantime, sending you love and best wishes. And an early “Happy New Year”!!
Happy 2017! I had hoped to give you a date for the re-release of The Magnificent Marquess, but I am finishing up my revisions and still aiming for the end of this month or early February. I just can’t sit on my new cover any longer –take a look!! (click on images to see them bigger)
The hero in this book has lived in India for most of his life, and besides some loyal Indian servants who chose to come with him to London, he also has brought his pet cheetah, Ranee. She is the cause of some trouble right at the beginning of the story. And while you might not think the topic of cheetahs is very connected to the Regency, let me show you how it is!
When this story was first published by Signet back in 1998, some readers didn’t realize that in the early 19th century there were still (or ever had been) Asian cheetahs in India. They are gone from India (the cheetahs, not the readers) and are very nearly extinct now even in the Middle East, where they used to roam freely. I was very distressed recently to read that cheetahs of every kind are now considered endangered. But in 1816, that was not the case.
In India, cheetahs were often trained for hunting. They are, after all, the fastest animal on the planet. It almost seems like cheating!! 
Just because the British were in India where the climate was quite unlike that at home doesn’t mean they were about to give up their treasured leisure pursuits. But not all cheetahs were suited to it, and that is the case with Ranee, who is much happier as a pampered companion.
Of course, Ranee is fictional, and I went with my belief in “what could have been” when I wrote this story. Have you ever read or written something in a story that seems reasonable based on research, even though you couldn’t document that anyone ever did it? Isn’t it exciting when later you stumble across information that supports it? It’s so much easier to do research now!
The Internet was just blossoming back when I wrote the original version of this book. At that time I did not find any actual cases of cheetahs being brought to London. But do you know who had one? George III! And the artist George Stubbs took time off from painting horses long enough to paint a picture of it. Here it is:
It breaks my heart that the king’s cheetah eventually ended up in the zoo at the Tower of London, such a sad fate for a magnificent animal born to run. How long it survived there I have not been able to find out. Even though this happened some 60 years before my story takes place, pre-Regency, the king and many other people from that time were still alive during the Regency and might have remembered poor Sultan, or at least saw Stubbs’s painting exhibited at the Royal Academy.
I still haven’t been able to access much information about Sultan or even the later history of the Stubbs painting, and now I would love to know more. If you’ve ever run across this or know of an accessible source, please share!
In the meantime, please let me know in the comments what you think of my new cover? I always wished Signet had included Ranee in the original one. I hope by next month I’ll be letting you know the new version of the book, revised and expanded, is out and available!! Happy New Year, everyone! 
P.S. If you are interested in learning more about cheetahs, there’s a fascinating blog that follows the story of one rescued cheetah from cub-dom to adulthood (click on any of the cheetah pix on the site’s homepage, or go here for a single post: http://sirikoi.blogspot.com/2013/09/sheba.html or here for a nice narrative version of Sheba’s story: http://www.care2.com/causes/cheetah-raised-by-humans-who-loved-her-enough-to-set-her-free.html Also here’s a link to the recent information about how endangered these beautiful cats have become today (with some more lovely photos): http://www.care2.com/causes/worlds-fastest-land-animal-is-now-racing-extinction.html