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Posts in which we talk about research

Belated Happy Halloween!

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Besides anxiety about Sandy, Halloween has obsessed me for much of this week.  This past weekend I helped to run a Halloween Party for my UU church, complete with a Haunted House put on by some of the older youth including one of my daughters, who played her role to creepy perfection.

While waiting for Sandy to hit, we finished carving our pumpkins in accordance with this year’s theme, Lord of the Rings.  (My daughters dressed up as Elven maidens in medieval-style gowns and their ever-useful Vulcan ears.)  Here’s my pumpkin, carved with the head of a Balrog, the fire demon that the wizard Gandalf battles in the mines of Moria.

Carving vegetables into scary shapes was already a custom during the Regency, although potatoes and turnips were often used.  If you want to learn more, check out my post about Jack-o-Lanterns from a few years ago.

We were fortunate enough not to lose power, so I was able to toast the pumpkin seeds the next day. This year, we experimented with a Mexican-inspired version. They were quite yummy. Those that I didn’t spill on the kitchen floor while transferring from pan to storage container, that is!

Here’s my recipe should you care to try it:

Ingredients: pumpkin seeds, olive oil, chili powder, cumin, salt.

  1. Rinse pumpkin seeds. Remove all pulp. Drain and spread on a cookie sheet to dry overnight.
  2. Preheat oven to 250F. Line baking sheet with foil.
  3. Toss pumpkin seeds in enough olive oil, salt, cumin and chili powder (about twice as much chili powder as the cumin) to lightly coat them.
  4. Bake for about 1 hour, tossing every 15 minutes, until golden brown.
  5. Cool. Store in airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 months.

Lastly, I was browsing around Youtube and found this clip of Northanger Abbey as if it really were a Gothic horror novel.


I hope you all enjoyed or will enjoy your Halloween, if you live in an area where it has been rescheduled. I think it’s important for the children (all of us, really) to maintain fun traditions even during scary, troubling times.

So what did you do for Halloween or what are you planning?

Elena
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Posted in Frivolity, Jane Austen, Research | Tagged , , | 3 Replies

Elections, Regency Style!

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Tomorrow is Election Day here in the USA and when you live in a swing state (Virginia) in the suburbs of the nation’s capital (Washington, D.C.), You. Cannot. Escape. This. Fact. Ever.

If I lived in Regency England, though, things would be a lot different. An election would only be for members of the House of Commons. In the early 1800s, the House of Lords consisted of hereditary peers and, of course, the king was not elected. Members of Parliament served until Parliament was dissolved, every five years unless emergency extensions were necessary.

Fairness was a rare commodity in election to the House of Commons. Some “pocket boroughs” were in the pocket of the local magnate or his designee and, therefore, had no real opposition. Other “rotten boroughs” might have small enough numbers of voters that all could be successfully bribed, while areas as densely populated as Manchester had no representative. For example, Old Sarum in Wiltshire had three houses and seven voters. The Reform Act of 1832 dissolved the rotten boroughs and more evenly distributed representation.

Like in the US, there were two main political parties. Generally speaking, the Tories were conservative, wanting to maintain the status quo, while the Whigs advocated electoral, parliamentary, and social reform. After the French Revolution, the Tory party experienced years of largely uncontested power. Before he became Prince Regent, George IV supported Whig sentiments, but when in power, he turned Tory.

The only people who could vote in Regency England were male landowners. Only one man in seven could vote in England; one in 44 in Scotland. Women did not earn full voting rights in the UK until 1928.

So when I cast my vote tomorrow, I’ll be grateful that I have a voice in my government and I’ll appreciate how different it would have been if I had lived in my beloved Regency England.

Go vote!!!

(P.S. I’ll be picking the winner of one download of Susanna’s An Infamous Marriage tonight, so you can still comment today. Susanna will be adding to her contest all Risky commenters who gave her an email address)

Posted in Regency, Research | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Replies

Vote!

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Today I am closing in on The End of the WIP, but am definitely going to take a break and get out to vite (as I hope everyone is!!)  In the meantime, I am re-running a personal favorite post of mine from the last election in 2008 about the role of women in 18th century politics…

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been doing some volunteer work at a political campaign office, getting ready for the Super Tuesday primary on February 5. It’s mostly answering phones, stuffing envelopes, handing out bumper stickers and yard signs–not hugely glamorous. But it’s made me think about Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, and her Whig friends in the 18th century. And about how political campaigns have–and haven’t–changed in 200+ years.

“Ladies who interest themselves so much in the case of elections, are perhaps too ignorant to know that they meddle with what does not concern them” –The Morning Post, March 1784.

Georgiana first met Charles James Fox in 1777, when he visited Chatsworth. At 28, he was already marked out as the future leader of the Whigs. Until then his political career had veered between success and failure, and Georgiana spent her time flitting around, partying and racking up debts. But they both wanted, and were capable, of much more. They spent that visit discussing ideas. Fox instilled in Georgiana a devotion to the Whigs, who by the 1770s stood for opposition to the King, mistrust of powers of the crown, and vigilance over civil liberties.

“One day last week, her Grace the Duchess of Devonshire appeared on the hustings at Covent Garden. She immediately saluted her favorite candidate, the Hon. Charles James Fox” –The Morning Post, September 25, 1780

Georgiana began following the debates in Parliament and perfecting her skills as a political hostess. She became the leader of an elite group of political females that included her sister Harriet Ponsonby, the Duchess of Portland, Lady Jersey, Lady Carlisle, Mrs. Bouverie, and the Waldegraves, yet none ever outshown her, or came in for the extent of criticism she did.

In 1780, Richard Brinsley Sheridan (playwright, politician, and lover of Georgiana’s sister Harriet) asked for Georgiana’s help. She arranged for him to stand in the Spencer-dominated borough of Stafford (he was elected, natch). A week later, on Sept. 25, Fox asked her to accompany him as he contested the borough of Westminster. In this case, she only stood on the platform for a few minutes, but the press was Shocked.

“The Duchess of Devonshire’s attendance at Covent Garden, perhaps, will not secure Mr. Fox’s election; but it will at least establish her pre-eminence above all other beauties of that place, and make her a standing toast in all the ale-houses and gin-shops of Westminster” –Morning Post, April 8, 1784

In 1782, the Whigs came to power with Fox as Foreign Secretary. Under Parliamentary rules, MPs selected for office had to re-offer themselves to their constituents, and Fox again asked Georgiana to help him out. He wanted her to lead a women’s delegation, and on April 3 she performed her first official duty for the party. She and the other ladies, wearing Whig colors of buff and blue, spoke under large banners reading ‘Freedom and Independence’ and ‘The Man of the People.’ She was a sensation. Fans bearing her portrait sold in the hundreds.

Her involvement in politics only grew after the birth of her first child (Little G) in 1784. The Duc de Chartres and his French delegation treated her as their official hostess; her influence with the Prince of Wales was well-known. But also in 1784, the Whigs were low in public opinion as they formed a Coalition against Prime Minister Pitt and the King. In March, Pitt called a general election, setting off a storm of campaigning.

On March 17, Georgiana appeared at the opera, to much cheering–and booing and hissing. The Duchess of Rutland, a Tory hostess, stood up in her box and shouted, “Damn Fox!” In reply, Lady Maria Waldegrave leaped up and retorted, “Damn Pitt!” This must have been highly entertaining! The most noise I’ve ever heard at the opera was once when the guy sitting behind me fell asleep and started snoring.

“The Duchess made no scruple of visiting some of the humblest of electors, dazzling and enchanting them by the fascination of her manner, the power of her beauty, and the influence of her high rank” –Horace Walpole


But Georgiana also suffered threats and abuse as she went about her campaigning. By the end of her first week, she was exhausted and hoarse, with blistered feet. Fox was still behind in the polls. Georgiana wrote to her mother Lady Spencer, “I gave the Election quite up, and must lament all that has happened.” The Pittite papers, like the Morning Herald, reported that she exchanged kisses for votes, and scurrilous cartoons appeared. (She sent deputies out to buy up the most offensive of them as soon as they appeared!). Fox did eventually score a victory, and Carlton House saw nights of celebratory balls and dinners.

Until the next election…

Have you ever done any work in politics? And where can I get one of those blue suits Keira Knightley has on in the film still? I LOVE that costume!

Posted in Research | Tagged , , | 2 Replies

Napoleonic War Veterans

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Yesterday was Veteran’s Day in the USA, a day we remember and honor the service of our military veterans. Both our Veteran’s Day and the UK’s Remembrance Day had their origins in Armistice Day, commemorating the armistice between the Allies of World War I and Germany for the cessation of hostilities to take at “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918.

After the Napoleonic Wars, though, a war that cost the lives of over five million people overall, no such honors were forthcoming. In fact, most officers and regular army returned to more struggles.

Officers who no longer had a regiment were placed on half-pay, which for some meant debt, eventual poverty, and the workhouse. Some tried to keep up the trappings of their rank only to fall deeper and deeper into debt. The Gentleman’s Magazine in November 1819 reported the death of one such officer. Lieutenant Henry Bowerman, late of the 56th Regiment of Foot, and his 11 and 12 year old sons, died in the Norwood workhouse.

Regular soldiers received no such half-pay, but some were eligible to be in-pensioners at the Royal Hospitals. The hospitals’ commissioners decided if a man was able to earn some sort of living and be sent as an out-pensioner. Sergeant Thomas Jackson, who lost a leg in the war, was deemed young and fit enough to work. His pension was one shilling a day.  He’d spent 12 years in the army.

Thousands of soldiers lined the streets with no occupation but drink. Few turned to begging, though, but professional beggars took their place by pretending to starving soldiers. Some fared adequately, marrying well or finding work. Benjamin Harris, whose memoirs about being in the Rifles certainly must have informed Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series, returned to being a shoemaker, but always considered his service in the war the only part of his life “worthy of remembrance.”

War memorials of the Napoleonic War soldier are nearly non-existent, existing mostly on graves or memorials to individual soldiers. A marble slab at one end of the nave in a parish church in Buckinghamshire, reads:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF
CHARLES EELES ESQ
Late Captain in his Majesty’s 95th Rifle Regiment,
who after serving with the British Army Thro’
the various campaigns in the Spanish Peninsula,
Terminated his Glorious Career
on the 18th of June 1815, in the 30th year of his age.
He fell nobly in his country’s cause on the ever
memorial field of Waterloo.
Esteemed,  Lamented, and Beloved.

Most Napoleonic soldiers WERE buried in fields near the battles in which they fought and died, their bodies plundered and left half-naked.

Perhaps we remember them, though, in our imaginations and our fascination with the Napoleonic War. We keep them alive in our books. Some we even reward with a happily ever after.

The information in this blog came from one of my favorite research books, Redcoat: The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket by Richard Holmes. Holmes explains everything about what it was like to be a soldier in the “Age of Brown Bess.”

Do you have a favorite book or movie involving a soldier? For me it was definitely the Sharpe series, on audiobook as read by William Gaminara

Posted in Regency, Research | Tagged | 4 Replies

Threads and fabrics

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I’ve just discovered some big news that I want to share, nothing to do with writing directly. The Threads of Feelingexhibit is coming to the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum in Williamsburg, VA, opening May 25 2013. If you’re not familiar with this astonishing and moving exhibit, take a look at the online version. It’s the records of admissions to the Foundling Museum in London, the first home in Britain for abandoned children, founded by William Hogarth, George Frideric Handel, and Thomas Coram. When babies were admitted, the parents provided a scrap of fabric, embroidery, or sometimes a note so that they could identify the child when they were able to support them once more.

Some children had a happy ending and were reunited with their mothers again. Many didn’t. Ones who survived were apprenticed out and disappear into the great mess of history.

What’s extraordinary, as well as the emotional impact, is the variety of fabrics and the vivid colors (because they were pinned inside the ledger and didn’t fade). It constitutes the best collection of period fabrics in the world.

There’s also a symposium, Threads of Feeling Unraveled: The London Foundling Hospital’s Textile Tokens on October 20-22, 2013 in Williamsburg, with the exhibit’s curator, John Styles, among the speakers. Registration isn’t open yet but scroll down on this page for details.

I can’t wait! There’s also a fabulous resource at the museum for historical clothes if you want to frivol away some hours online.

Although I should be planning what I’m going to cook for the Thanksgiving feast next weekend (possibly something hip with brussel sprouts that only I and my daughter will eat) I’m planning a new Regency gown. I have a lovely silk gown but I’m after a cotton one that I can do the dishes in and preferably a drawstring one I can get into without assistance. This is the fabric I’m probably going to use. It’s from an ebay store, Heritage Trading, which has some gorgeous silks and cottons and uses the traditional hand woodblocking techniques.

So what are you up to and what are your Thanksgiving plans?

Posted in Research | Tagged , , | 9 Replies
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