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The Nottingham Goose Fair

October 5, 2016 October 5, 2016 Sandra Schwab 4 Comments

Not quite a goose, but a duck

The first Wednesday of October is the traditional date for the Nottingham Goose Fair, which today is a huge pleasure fair. But as its name suggests, in former times, one of the main goods being sold at that fair were indeed geese.

The time around Michaelmas (also known as the Feast of the Archangels or the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels) on 29 September was traditionally a time for goose-eating in England — according to legend, because Queen Elizabeth received news of the defeat of the Spanish Armada on Michaelmas Day, just when she had sat down for a meal of roast goose. She thus declared (again, according to legend) roast goose should forevermore be eaten on Michaelmas day in celebration of England’s might.

The truth is a bit more mundane: by the Tudor age, goose eating had already become connected to Michaelmas – probably because it is one of the old quarter days, marks the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the new farming year. Incidentally, spring geese are big enough to be slaughtered by the end of September and thus, a goose became a customary gift of tenants to give to their landlord when they were paying the rent on Michaelmas Day.

Not surprisingly then, at a lot of fairs held around the country around Michaelmas the wares that were being sold included geese. Most of these goose fairs have been long forgotten, but Nottingham Goose Fair is one of the few exceptions.

The fair has a very long tradition: in some form or another, it might have existed even before the Norman Conquest, and it had received its name, “Goose Fair,” by 1541. Originally, the main event of the far was indeed the selling of geese. An article from the September 1871 issue of Golden Hours: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine for Family and General Reading mentions that a “street on the Lincolnshire side of Nottingham is said to be called Goose-gate from the numbers which were driven through it for the annual goose fair, when from 15,000 to 20,000 of those birds were brought from the Lincolnshire fens, each flock attended by a goose-herd with a crook, wherewith to catch and lead out any goose which a possible customer might desire to examine more closely.”

By the 19th century, it was considered lucky to eat goose on Michaelmas Day: according to a proverb, you’d never lack any money if you ate goose on Michaelmas Day. And in 1813, in a letter to her sister, Jane Austen writes, “I dined upon Goose yesterday — which I hope will secure a good Sale of my 2d Edition” (i.e., the 2nd edition of Sense and Sensibility).

Today, only the name of the Nottingham Goose Fair and the sculpture of a giant goose in the town serve as reminders of the old purpose of the fair, which by now has become a giant pleasure fair.

The Nottingham Hidden History Team has a picture of said sculpture as well as a few pictures of the fair in earlier centuries.

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In other news: A couple of days ago, I sent my latest WIP to my editor. “The Centurion’s Choice” is a spin-off novella from my Roman series and will be ready for release at some point in November. (And poor Lucius doesn’t have any nipples in this picture. *sigh* Sandra Schwab, forever forgetting to give her male digital models nipples.) (He totally will have nipples on the finished cover!!)

Amelia Long, Lady Farnborough

October 3, 2016 January 24, 2023 Diane Gaston 6 Comments

Genna, the heroine of my upcoming book (Nov 22), Bound By A Scandalous Secret, is an aspiring artist who wishes to make her living with her art, but she has grown up in the country and has never actually met another artist, let alone another woman artist. I wanted her to meet a real woman artist of the time period.

My research led me to Amelia Long (1762-1837). Amelia, nee Hume, was the daughter of an amateur artist and she studied under watercolorist Thomas Girtin, a friend and rival of Turner, and also of Henry Edridge, a painter of landscapes, miniatures, and portraits. She painted landscapes which were exhibited at the Royal Academy.

After a trip abroad to Italy, Amelia married Charles Long, a politician and art connoisseur who was a friend of William Pitt and an art advisor to the Prince Regent, who later became George IV.

Amelia and her husband Charles purchased Bromley Hill where Amelia redesigned the gardens, which were much admired.

In 1826 Charles became Baron Farnborough.

In Bound By A Scandalous Secret, I wanted Genna to tour Carlton House, the extravagant house of the Prince Regent. In my first version, I just made up a guy, but when I discovered Charles advised the Regent, he was perfect for being her tour guide.

I just love when those sorts of synchronism happen!

Do you have a favorite woman artist?

Caroline Warfield starts a new series!

September 30, 2016 January 24, 2023 Gail Eastwood 13 Comments

Today at Risky Regencies, we are delighted to have Caroline Warfield as our guest! Caroline has a book giveaway for you and a fascinating glimpse of a Canadian setting used in her new release, The Renegade Wife. Her new post-Regency series follows the children of characters introduced in her first series. To learn more, please read on!

Traveler, would-be adventurer, librarian, technology manager—Caroline Warfield has been many things, but above all a romantic. She is now a writer of historical romance, enamored of owls, books, history, and beautiful gardens, who sits in an office surrounded by windows and lets her characters lead her to adventures in England and the far flung corners of the British Empire. She nudges them to explore the riskiest territory of all, the human heart.

Children of Empire

Raised with all the privilege of the English aristocracy, forged on the edges of the British Empire, men and woman of the early Victorian age seek their own destiny and make their mark on history. The heroes and heroines of Caroline’s Dangerous Series overcame challenges even after their happy ending. Their children seek their own happiness in distant lands in Children of Empire.

Caroline will give a Kindle copy of the winner’s choice of Dangerous Works or Dangerous Secrets to one randomly selected person who comments.

Book 1 in the new series is The Renegade Wife, which releases on October 12. Betrayed by his cousin and the woman he loved, Rand Wheatly fled England, his dreams of a loving family shattered. He clings to his solitude in an isolated cabin in Upper Canada. Returning from a business trip, he finds a widow and two children squatting in his house. He wants them gone, but his heart is not as hard as he likes to pretend. Meggy Blair harbors a secret, and she’ll do whatever it takes to keep her children safe. She doesn’t expect to find shelter with a quiet, solitary man, a man who lowers his defensive walls enough to let Meggy and her children in.

Their idyllic interlude is shattered when Meggy’s brutal husband appears to claim his children. She isn’t a widow, but a wife, a woman who betrayed the man she was supposed to love, just as Rand’s sweetheart betrayed him. He soon discovers why Meggy is on the run, but time is running out. To save them all, Rand must return and face his demons.

Caroline says: “When my Dangerous Series came to an end, and I looked around for my next project, I realized that I had populated my earlier books with young people who would grow up and need to search for their own happiness. A quick look at timelines of English history showed me that I would be moving into a really rich period of social upheaval and empire building. With it came exotic locations, something I particularly value. One wearies of the London drawing room after a while. The result was not just one book, but a whole new series. I named it Children of Empire.

The first books take place during the reign of William IV, the time in between the Georgian and Victorian eras. The Reform Crisis, social upheaval, growing interest in the Canadian timber industry, the expansion of the East India company, and the seeds of the First Opium War all lurk in the background of the first three books.

One major treat in researching The Renegade Wife was learning about the building of Rideau Canal. The story takes place months after the completion of the canal, certainly a wonder when it was built, and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. My characters travel the Rideau watershed and visit Bytown, now called Ottawa.

The untamed river and the lock 100 feet away.

I took the opportunity to go take a look, and the locks at Ottawa—still functioning after 180 years—astounded me. So did the whole length of locks, dams, and blockhouses, all built to defend the Canadas (as the provinces were known in 1832) from those pesky Americans down south. ” (1827 Commissariat Building, shown behind me in the photo, is now the Bytown museum.)

Do you enjoy following characters into the post-Regency era and more exotic locations of the British Empire? Have you ever been to Ottawa, or visited the Rideau Canal or the Bytown museum? Post a comment to be entered into the drawing for Caroline’s giveaway!

A brief excerpt from The Renegade Wife:

She pushed away from the door. “If you’re finished, I’ll clear up your dishes.

“Damn it woman, I fend for myself here.” He looked her up and down. He noticed her deep blue eyes, midnight black hair, and dusky skin. “What are you? Gypsy? Is that where you learned how to diddle a man out of his belongings?”

She drew her back up straight and squared her shoulders. The gesture pulled her dress tight across obviously ample breasts.

There’s a practiced enticement. She’s in for a surprise if she thinks that trick will work on me.

Chin high, she met his eyes without flinching. “My grandmother is Ojibwa, my father was French, and my husband was a Scot. You can despise whichever one of those your English heart chooses, or all of them, but I am not a thief.”

She grabbed her skirt and took a step toward the door. “Do fend for yourself. We’ll leave as soon as we can.”

“I’ll decide when you’re a thief,” he snarled, bringing her to a halt. “It’s my house.”

For (pre-order) purchase on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Renegade-Wife-Children-Empire-Book-ebook/dp/B01LY7IRT6/

Also check out Caroline online:

Website and Blog http://www.carolinewarfield.com/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/carolinewarfield7

Twitter @CaroWarfield

There’s also a Pinterest Board for The Renegade Wife! http://bit.ly/2aHWOr6

Please leave a comment, to be entered in the giveaway.

Thanks for visiting with us today, Caroline!

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Special Guest on Friday!

September 28, 2016 January 24, 2023 Gail Eastwood Leave a comment

On Friday (Sept 30) at Risky Regencies, we’ll have Caroline Warfield as our guest! Caroline has a book giveaway for you and a fascinating glimpse of a Canadian setting used in her new release, The Renegade Wife. Her new “post-Regency” series follows the children of characters introduced in her first series. To learn more, please drop in to visit her with us on Friday!

A little poor looking insignificant old woman

September 26, 2016 September 26, 2016 Rose Lerner 8 Comments

As part of my recent research dive into All Things Hamilton, I read a book that had been sitting on my shelf for years, that I originally intended to read as research for my Regency spy story A Lily Among Thorns and never got around to: Invisible Ink: Spycraft of the American Revolution by John Nagy.

While the book’s style is occasionally confusing and repetitive, and the book could have used both a more thorough edit AND a thorough copyedit, it’s full of great information and I thought today I’d share a few of my favorite tidbits.

1. In General Clinton’s papers is a codebook using Biblical words and places. For example, “synagogue” meant congress, “Jordan” meant the Susquehanna River, “Sodom” meant Wyoming PA and “Gomorrah” meant Pittsburgh. Not sure what the code authors had against Pennsylvania…

2. John Adams had a lot of trouble deciphering a correspondent’s coded letters and Abigail tactfully tried to help him out at a distance without deflating his ego: “With regard to the cipher of which you complain, I have always been fortunate enough to succeed with it. Take the two Letters for which the figure stands and place one under the other through the whole sentence…”

3. Molly “Mom” Rinker used to bleach flax on top of a high rock. “While performing this chore, she would sit and knit for hours on end, all the while observing British troop movements.” She then shoved her notes into the center of her ball of yarn and “accidentally” dropped it over the side of the rocks, where it would be retrieved by American scouts.

In fact, a number of spies during the Revolution were women (just as there were many black spies; spying is one of the few professions where it’s useful to be underestimated). Another great story involves (in Elias Boudinot’s words) a “little poor looking insignificant old woman” who came asking for permission to leave Philadelphia to buy flour and gave Boudinot a “dirty old needlebook” in which she had hidden a rolled-up scrap of paper accurately informing the rebels that “General Howe was coming out the next morning with 5,000 men, 13 pieces of cannon, baggage wagons, and 11 boats on wagon wheels.”

4. Eliphalet Fitch “contracted with Francisco Miranda, a Spanish official in Jamaica, to supply military stores to the Spanish under the cover of flags of truce for prisoner exchanges. The fact that Colonel John Darling, the governor of Jamaica, and Sir Peter Parker, a British admiral, were quarreling and not speaking to each other allowed Fitch to pretend that he had received permission for his flags of truce from one or the other.” A great story even apart from how whenever I read “Admiral Sir Peter Parker” I imagine Age of Sail Spider-Man.

5. Captain Noah Phelps infiltrated Fort Ticonderoga by “pretend[ing] to be a countryman who wanted a shave from the British fort’s barber”!

Do you have a favorite spy story?