Category: Research

Posts in which we talk about research

The Death of Lord Nelson

Updated on January 10, 2013 by Diane Gaston

Yesterday was the anniversary of the death of Admiral Lord Nelson. On October 21, 1805, Horatio Nelson, the 1st Viscount Nelson, was in command of the British Navy fleet and defeated a combined French and Spanish fleet at Trafalgar, thus securing Great Britain from invasion. The Battle of Trafalgar is considered one of Great Britain’s greatest naval victories.

While engaged in the battle, Lord Nelson was hit by a sniper’s bullet fired from the rigging of the French ship Redoutable. After being hit he said to his captain, “Hardy, I do believe they have done it at last…my backbone is shot through.” He died four hours later, his last words being, “Thank God I did my duty” and “God and my country.”

Lord Nelson was beloved by his men and revered as a great naval commander by his country. His funeral was an event with much pageantry and he was interred in St. Paul’s Cathedral. By 1809 monuments in Dublin and Montreal were constructed. Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square was completed in 1843.

Everyone knows that Nelson’s body was preserved in brandy until transported to England, and everyone knows of his affair with Lady Hamilton. In fact on his deathbed he begged that his country take care of her and that his belongings be given to her, but these requests were ignored. She was not even allowed to attend his funeral. But did you know:

That his famous dispatch was originally requested by him to read England confides that every man will do his duty? His signalman suggested substituting the word expects for confides because expects was in the Signal book and could be represented by one flag while confides would have to be spelled out.

That before the battle, Nelson was advised to remove the decorations from his coat so he would not be so easily identified by snipers? He refused saying they were military orders and he did not fear showing them to the enemy.

That you can see Lord Nelson’s bloodstained breeches and stockings at the National Maritime Museum in London?

That you can see Lord Nelson’s famous hat at Locke and Co., hatters since 1676? Locke and Co. remains a family owned business, the oldest family business in existence as well as the oldest hat shop in the world.

Do you know any interesting facts about Admiral Lord Nelson? Did you ever see That Hamilton Woman with Vivian Leigh and Lawrence Olivier?

Posted in Research | Tagged Admiral Lord Nelson, Lady Hamilton, locke and co, Trafalgar | 6 Replies

“Engaging Oldfield”

Updated on January 10, 2013 by Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee

Happy Tuesday, everyone! I am deep in finishing up a book due Oct. 31 (the first in my Elizabethan mystery series! I’m soooo excited about it), but first a little Tuesday business. The winner of Love and Louis XIV is…Elizabeth Mahon! Check your email inbox for more info…

And in looking around for a blog topic today, I found out that Georgian actress Anne Oldfield died on this day in 1730. I’m a huge theater buff, and love to collect books about the history of the theater/opera/ballet, so I sorted through my shelves until I found Joanne Lafler’s The Celebrated Mrs. Oldfield: The Life and Art of an Augustan Actress.

Anne Oldfield was born in London in 1683, the daughter of a poor soldier. She was apprenticed to a seamstress, but she loved reciting poetry and plays, and one day was overheard (it was said in a tavern!) by theater impresario George Farquhar, who was impressed with her beauty and her speaking voice. She then found herself engaged at Drury Theater and was an instant hit, at first for her looks more than any acting ability, but as the years passed she honed her craft and became renowned as a great comic actress.

Some of her most famous roles were in plays by Ben Jonson (Volpone and Epicoene) and Colley Cibber (The Careless Husband, The Provok’d Husband), who declared she “here she outdid her usual Outdoing.”

She was one of the great theatrical idols of her day, renowned for her talent and her ladylike behavior, her clothes and hats copied, her plays sold-out. Alexander Pope, in Sober Advice from Horace, said, “Engaging Oldfield, who, with grace and ease, Could join the arts to ruin and to please.”

She died at 47 at her fine house at 60 Grosvenor Street in London, leaving her rather large fortune to her two sons. She was buried at Westminster Abbey.

Who would you love to go back in time and see onstage???

Posted in Research | Tagged Anne Oldfield, theater | 5 Replies

Inglorious October 25

Updated on January 10, 2013 by Janet Mullany

Good morning/afternoon everyone. I’m recycling a blog post from October 25, 2007 today, the anniversary of two major battles, neither of which have anything to do with the Regency period.

In 1415, Henry V won the Battle of Agincourt, one of the attempts by England to get a foothold in France (and am I the only person who prefers the Olivier version over the Branagh film?).

And in 1854, thanks to bungled orders, political infighting among officers, and the famed stiff upper lip, the Charge of the Light Brigade took place, when the 13th Hussars charged directly into enemy guns during the Crimean War. As a French general commented, “C’est magnifique mais ce ne pas la guerre.” (Roughly translated as: it’s magnificent, but not war. Well, it sounds better in French.)

I’d hazard a guess that we remember these events by the two poets who immortalized them rather by the history. Here’s an excerpt from the famous St. Crispin’s Day speech by Shakespeare:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Tennyson, another master of the soundbite, immortalized the Charge of the Light Brigade, a peom that, if you are an English person of a certain age, you had drummed into you at school, or at least the more quotable bits of it:

Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

I wonder if we would remember these two events–the English tried for a couple more centuries to claim bits of France, but failed; and the famous Charge was a tactical blunder of monumental stupidity–if it weren’t for the poets.

And a reminder that the contest to win one of my books about Jane Austen as a vampire is still open at Dark Jane Austen. Now I must go and write. What are you up to today?

Posted in Research | Tagged poetry, Shakespeare, Tennyson | 2 Replies

Hurricane

Updated on January 10, 2013 by Diane Gaston

Today in the mid-atlantic states and the northeast we will be having a hurricane. Not just any old hurricane, but a storm such as has never been seen before. It looks like New Jersey and New York city will be hardest hit. The Washington D.C. area where I live will be on the outskirts of the storm, but, even so, the federal government is closed, the subway and bus lines will not run, schools are closed and we’ve been warned for two days to be prepared.

I’ve been to the grocery store twice and purchased all the essentials. Toilet paper. Cat food. Kitty litter….and food and drink for the people in the household. If we have electricity, I’ll let you know how we are faring during the day. If not, I’ll be back when I can.

Meanwhile, here’s a snippet about a hurricane in England, March 23, 1822.

And one from October 18, 1812, and another from October 19 and 20 that same year.

If you are in the storm’s path, I wish you good luck. Stay safe.
Any advice for weathering a storm? What should I read, if I need to read by candlelight?

Posted in Research | Tagged hurricane | 10 Replies

Memories of Bath

Updated on January 10, 2013 by Janet Mullany

OK, I’m cheating a bit because despite having power all through the storm I spent it lounging around blissfully reading and baking and eating the products of the baking. Now everything has caught up with me, so I’m recycling a post in which I talk about the city of Bath and my late aunts Phyl and Nell who introduced me to Heyer and who shared my love of reading and Austen.

They were born about a century ago in London, the older sisters of my father. Their parents were of Irish descent, their mother (my g-grandmother) was in service according to the 1901, census and their father a maker of brass musical instruments. Neither of my aunts married. They shared houses and when I was a child we visited them in their wonderful house in Bath, on Lansdown Place West. This may be their house, I can’t read the house number.

Lansdown Place West is the continuation of Lansdown Crescent, one of the most beautiful pieces of Georgian architecture in the city, constructed between 1789 and 1793 and designed by architect John Palmer. It’s higher than the more famous Royal Crescent, with an amazing view of the city.

In front of Lansdown Crescent is a field still used for grazing, one of the original design features of the Royal Crescent (and possibly other places too)–the idea being that you’d have the pleasures of the town with the healthful idyll of country life.

The only (so far as I know) famous, or infamous, occupant of Lansdown Crescent was William Beckford who lived at number 19 and 20 (the ones with the imposing frontage). The houses have four floors, servants’ quarters in the basement, and mews behind the Crescent.

My aunts showed me the city of Bath. They took me to tea at the Pump Room and Sally Lunn’s, boat rides on the river, tours of the Roman Baths, and walks around the city. There was a shop, now moved to a different location in the Guildhall, Gillards of Bath, which was very little changed from Victorian times. Loose tea, stored in massive metal containers, was measured on scales, tipped onto a sheet of brown paper, and folded into a miraculous neat cube, tied with string.

Their house on Lansdown Place West became too much for them–all those stairs and continual maintenance, so they moved to an early eighteenth-century house in Batheaston (lots of stairs and continual maintenance) a few miles east of the city. Again, this may or may not be their house but it’s very close!

My aunts loved Heyer, Austen and Georgian/Regency architecture, fashions, and furniture long before they became popular, and picked up antiques for a song at jumble sales. They taught me it’s possible to fall in love with a place and I certainly fell in love with Bath, thanks to them. They even suggested I write, although at the time I thought it was a weird idea. A few years ago I met with a psychic who told me she saw them behind my shoulder and they were both very proud of my writing, although Nell (it must have been Nell!) was quite upset at what I’d done to Jane Austen (not to mention the sex!)

I’m so grateful for what they gave me.

Who were your mentors for writing or any other passion? And have you ever had a session with a psychic that unearthed something interesting?

Posted in Reading, Research, Writing | Tagged bath, psychic | 2 Replies