Coke of Norfolk, Thomas William Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester (1754–1842): Owner of Holkham Hall in Norfolk, Coke (pronounced ‘cook’) was an agricultural pioneer who invested much of his energy in his estate, to the benefit of both his tenants and his purse. Overcoming stubborn resistance to new farming techniques and crops (he was among the first to grow wheat successfully in Norfolk), in less than forty years Coke increased his annual rental income from £2,000 to £20,000. Eager to share his farming success with others, Coke played host to the Holkham Clippings, an annual three-day event to which many people—including Adam Deveril of A Civil Contract—came from all over the world to learn and share ideas about farming. A successful and energetic Whig MP, Coke held his seat in parliament for 57 years.
Coke of Norfolk.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834): Best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, Coleridge was one of the founders of English Romanticism. He studied at Cambridge and met the poet Robert Southey with whom for a time he became a pantisocrat and (with Drusilla Morville’s father in The Quiet Gentleman) made plans to create an equitable community on the banks of the Susquehanna. Instead he married Sara Fricker (Southey married her sister Edith) and continued writing. His career as a poet was adversely affected by ill health and an opium addiction, but he continued to write and lecture, producing a weekly paper called The Friend as well as critical and theological works, plays and, in 1817, his famous Biographia Literaria.
William Godwin (1756–1836): Novelist, philosopher and political writer, Godwin had been a dissenting minister but became an atheist with decided views as to the true nature of man. He believed in the power of reason and that rational behaviour could enable people to live harmoniously without laws or institutions. In 1797 he married the famous writer and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.
Lord Melbourne.
Charles Lamb (1775–1834) and Mary Lamb (1764–1847): Charles and Mary Lamb were brother and sister who spent much of their life together writing plays, poems and prose works. Charles had become responsible for his sister in 1796 when, in a fit of insanity, she had tragically murdered their mother. Mary continued to suffer from intermittent seizures, but was devoted to her brother who also suffered from occasional bouts of madness. The two are best known for their children’s book Tales from Shakespeare.
William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (1779–1848): The son of the famous Whig hostess, Lady Melbourne, William may have been fathered by the Earl of Egremont. A dutiful son and a kind, amiable husband, William married Caroline Ponsonby in 1805 and quietly endured her affair with Byron and her many other indiscretions. The birth of a mentally disabled son was a personal tragedy and added to his disinclination to deal with harsh realities. The death of his elder brother, Peniston, in 1805, made him heir to the title and he entered the House of Lords as a Whig conservative. He was Queen Victoria’s first prime minister.
Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830): A talented artist from his youth, Thomas Lawrence was a renowned portrait painter who, in 1792, succeeded Sir Henry Reynolds as the King’s principal painter. He painted many of Europe’s most notable figures, including the heroes of the Napoleonic Wars (and also Nell, Lady Cardross, in April Lady). He lived for a time at 65 Russell Square where he undertook private commissions at a cost of more than 400 guineas for a full-length portrait. Knighted in 1815, Lawrence became president of the Royal Academy in 1820.
Matthew Gregory ‘Monk’ Lewis (1775–1818): Lewis became known as ‘Monk’ after the publication, in 1796, of his popular Gothic novel Ambrosio, or The Monk. His writing influenced Walter Scott’s early poetry and Lewis collaborated with him and Robert Southey on Tales of Wonder (1801). As a liberal he was concerned about the treatment of slaves and twice visited his Jamaica plantation before dying of yellow fever in 1818.
Lord Liverpool, Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (1770–1828): The longest-serving of all British prime ministers, Liverpool entered parliament in 1790 and became prime minister in 1812, overseeing the final years of the Napoleonic Wars, and consolidating the position of his ministry with both the parliament and the people. Although not in favour of many of the reforms proposed during the period, Liverpool was an astute and responsive politician who addressed many of the economic issues of the day. He believed strongly in public order and the rule of law and his government’s introduction, in 1819, of the Six Acts in response to the Peterloo massacre was strongly criticised.
Louis XVIII, King of France (1755–1824): The younger brother of Louis XVI, who was executed during the Revolution, Louis XVIII left Paris in 1791 and went into exile, eventually settling in England. When Napoleon was defeated and sent to Elba in 1814, Louis returned to Paris as King. He enjoyed a brief reign before Napoleon’s escape from Elba and unopposed entry into Paris—at which point Louis and his family beat a hasty retreat from the city. He regained the throne after Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo and was the first French monarch to reign with an elected parliamentary government.
Prince William of Orange (1792–1849): Heir to the Dutch throne, William lived in exile during Napoleon’s rampage across Europe, spent two years at Oxford and served under the Duke of Wellington (who described him as ‘a stupid, untidy and dissolute young man’) in Spain, where he was known by the general staff as ‘Slender Billy’. In 1813 the Prince Regent, feeling that the Dutch fleet would be a useful addition to the British navy, encouraged his daughter to accept the Prince’s marriage proposal. The engagement was broken off, however, and William married the Tsar of Russia’s sister, Anna.
Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832): A poet in his early years, Scott enjoyed great popularity with his Scottish border ballads and long narrative poems such as The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805) and Marmion (1808). The rise of Byron in 1812 saw Scott turn to novel writing and, drawing on his deep love of Scotland, its history and people, he produced the landmark historical romance Waverley. Over the next decade Scott anonymously published a series of best-selling books including Guy Mannering (1815), Rob Roy (1817), The Heart of Midlothian (1818) and Ivanhoe (1819) but did not acknowledge authorship until 1827.
Robert Southey (1774–1843): A prolific writer, Southey was a popular poet and biographer who became Poet Laureate in 1813. Best remembered for his biographical works including his Life of Nelson (1813) and Life of Wesley (1820), in his day he was admired by the likes of Scott and Byron, and his epic poem The Curse of Kehama (1810) was enormously popular. One of the ‘Lake Poets’, Southey had studied at Oxford where he became good friends with Coleridge with whom he had been a pantisocrat with plans to establish an equitable community on the banks of the Susquehanna. Instead he married Edith Fricker, the sister of Coleridge’s wife Sara, and spent much of his life writing.
THE BEAU AND THE DANDIES
Beau Brummell.
George Bryan ‘Beau’ Brummell (1778–1840): The subject of countless anecdotes and credited with many famous sayings (such as asking, ‘Who’s your fat friend?’ in reference to the Prince Regent), for many years Beau Brummell stood at the centre of the fashionable world. Born into the middle class, Brummell entered elite circles by way of Eton—where his wit and elegance earned him the nickname ‘Beau’—and Oxford. After a short stay at the university he was gazetted a cornet in the Prince of Wales’s regiment, the 10th Hussars, and the two became friends. Brummell sold out of the army on his regiment being ordered to Manchester and moved to London where he soon established himself as arbiter elegantiarum, remaining the acknowledged leader of fashion and close friend of the Prince of Wales for more than a decade. Brummell’s neat, plain style of dress, his mannerisms and his social decrees were everywhere adhered to and slavishly copied. In dress he insisted upon personal cleanliness, freshly laundered shirts, a perfectly tied neckcloth and a simplicity of attire that did not draw attention to the wearer. It was Brummell who began the fashion for perfectly cut, dark-coloured coats for evening wear (which continues today in the form of the dinner jack
et). Brummell was a leader of society in more than mere clothes, however; he was also admired for his wit and social grace and feared for his satire and insolence. It was said that the Beau could make a man’s reputation merely by giving him his arm for the length of the street and could just as easily (it was supposed) blight a person’s social career by the lifting of an eyebrow. He exercised a remarkable hold over fashionable society for nearly twenty years, even after falling out with the Regent in 1813. Possessed of a large fortune in his twenties, he had gambled it away by his forties and in 1816 his massive debts forced him into exile in France where he died in an asylum in Caen in 1840.
William, 2nd Baron Alvanley (1789–1849): Universally liked and admired for his handsome demeanour, kindness and lightning repartee, Lord Alvanley was also a noted dresser and one of the leading dandies of his day. The possessor of an immense fortune, he indulged in all the pleasures of the table—both dining and gaming—and thought nothing of paying £200 for a lunch hamper from Gunter’s or producing the most expensive dish (a fricassee using thirteen different birds) for a special dinner at White’s. He never used cash but lived on credit and famously said of a friend that he had ‘muddled away his fortune in paying tradesmen’s bills’. Of average height, but well-built, he excelled at sports, was a first-rate huntsman and had seen active service in the Coldstream Guards, attaining the rank of lieutenant-colonel before resigning his commission. Intelligent, well-read and always good-humoured, Alvanley had spent time in many of the European courts and was a popular guest, despite his habit of snuffing his candle with his pillow and requesting that an apricot tart be served to him at dinner every day. Less well-off in his later years, he remained a kind and considerate friend to many until the end of his life.
Charles Stanhope, Lord Petersham, 4th Earl of Harrington (1780–1851): A popular member of the dandy set, Petersham was an elegant dresser with a penchant for inventing clothes. His best-known legacy to the world of fashion was the briefly fashionable Petersham trousers: a loose-fitting form of Cossack pant with wide legs that could be drawn in at the ankle (and thought all the crack by Viscount Desford’s younger brother, Simon, in Charity Girl). Petersham was also known for eccentric habits such as his refusal to venture out before 6 p.m., his predilection for the colour brown (manifested in his equipage of brown carriage, harness, horses and footmen in brown livery), his passion for all kinds of tea and snuff and his collection of snuff-boxes, reputed to be the finest in England.
The Honourable Frederick Gerald ‘Poodle’ Byng (died 1871): Allegedly nicknamed ‘Poodle’ by Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, and Lady Bath because of his thick curly hair, Frederick Byng was a serious, somewhat platitudinous young man. He did, in fact, own a French poodle which sat up beside him when he drove his curricle in the park and he endured many jokes on account of his unfortunate sobriquet. In Arabella, he took the appearance of Mr Beaumaris’s mongrel dog Ulysses in his master’s carriage as a direct insult. Byng spent several years in the Foreign Office, as a result of which he developed the habit of imparting rather tedious bits of trivia to those around him. Although he never gained total acceptance by society’s elite inner circle, Byng was present at the marriage of George, Prince of Wales, to Caroline of Brunswick.
Poodle Byng.
Edward Hughes Ball Hughes, ‘Golden Ball’ (died 1863): The son of Captain Ball, of the Royal Navy, Hughes inherited his vast fortune (£40,000 a year) from his stepfather, Admiral Sir Edward Hughes, whose name he added to his own. Despite being handsome, well-built and always exquisitely dressed, Hughes was never recognised as one of the great dandies nor admitted to the elite inner circle. He irritated some with his peculiar, mincing walk (which made Arabella wonder if he was in pain) and affected lisp, but his cardinal sin was to be judged a follower of fashion—one who kept a box at the opera and a stable of hunters, dabbled at sports and went to the races simply to keep up appearances and not because he genuinely enjoyed such pastimes. In fact, Hughes enjoyed a variety of sports and was a great gambler, playing whist for £5 points and often staying up all night to gamble.
Golden Ball.
Appendix 1
A Glossary of Cant and Common Regency Phrases
CANT
During the Regency it became the fashion for upper-class men to integrate into their everyday speech the language of certain of the lower classes. Mainly as a result of the rising interest in sport and the predominance of the horse in this period, many well-born males used boxing cant, racing cant and the vocabulary of the stable hand and the coachman as part of their daily talk. In addition, forays by bored young men into the seedier parts of town saw the inclusion of phrases culled from the extraordinary and colourful slang used in London’s underworld. The famous Regency writer and journalist, Pierce Egan, was undoubtedly one of the foremost exponents of sporting cant during the period, and Georgette Heyer enjoyed and made great use of the language in his lively tale of Jerry Hawthorn and his friend Corinthian Tom in Egan’s book Life in London.
BOXING
a bit of the home-brewed: punching or hitting done by an untrained boxer
bone box: mouth
bottom: courage, guts, stability—in pugilism one who can endure a beating
a bruiser: a boxer
claret: blood
displays to advantage: boxes well, looks good in the ring or in a fight
to draw his cork: to make him bleed—particularly by punching him in the nose
fib him: to beat or hit someone
a mill: a fight, usually a boxing match or fist-fight
a milling cove: a pugilist or boxer
milling a canister: break someone’s head
plant a facer: punch someone in the face
HORSES
beautiful stepper: a good horse with a fine easy gait
blood cattle: well-bred horses, thoroughbreds
bone-setters: ill-bred horses, inferior horses
bottom: a strong horse with good temperament and endurance
cattle: horses
hunt the squirrel: the often dangerous sport of following closely behind a carriage and then passing it so closely as to brush the wheel. Considered an amusing pastime by stagecoachmen and some sporting gentlemen, the practice often resulted in the victim’s carriage being overturned.
neck-or-nothing: a rider who will try anything, a bold daring sportsman or sportswoman
part company: to fall off a horse
prime bits of blood: top quality horses
a screw: a very poor quality horse
a sweetgoer: a horse with an easy action
throwing out a splint: become lame as a result of swelling in the ligament next to the splint bone
DRINKING
a ball of fire: a glass of brandy
blood and thunder: a mixture of port wine and brandy
blue ruin: gin
boosey: drunk
boozing-ken: a tavern or alehouse
bosky: drunk
a bumper: a full glass
daffy: gin
dipping too deep: drinking too much
disguised: drunk
drunk as a wheelbarrow: inebriated
eaten Hull cheese: drunk
an elbow-crooker: a drinker
a flash of lightning: strong spirits, a glass of gin
foxed: intoxicated
fuddled: drunk
half-sprung: tipsy, mellow with drink
heavy wet: porter or stout, malt liquor
in his altitudes: drunk
in your cups: drunk
jug-bitten: tipsy
making indentures: drinking
on the cut: to go on a spree; to get drunk
shoot the cat: to vomit
to cast up one’s accounts: to vomit
too ripe and ready: drunk
top-heavy: drunk
FEELINGS AND BEHAVIOUR
a bear-garden jaw: rude, vulgar language; a real talking to
be on the high ropes: to stand on one’
s dignity; to become very angry; to be excited
blue as megrim: depressed, sad, unhappy
break-teeth words: difficult words, hard to pronounce
buffle-headed: confused, stupid, foolish
corky: lively, merry, playful, restless
cry rope: to cry out a warning
cut one’s eye teeth: to become knowing, to understand the world
dicked in the nob: silly, crazy
done to a cow’s thumb: exhausted
fagged to death: exhausted
fit of the blue-devils: sad, miserable, depressed, in low spirits
fly up into the boughs: fly into a passion, lose one’s temper
Friday-faced: a sad or miserable countenance—derived from the tradition of Friday abstinence which prohibited publicans from dressing dinners on Fridays
high in the instep: arrogant, haughty, proud
a honey-fall: good fortune
in a dudgeon: angry, in a bad mood
in high ropes: ecstatic, elated, in high spirits
kick over the traces: to go the pace; kick up larks; behave in a headstrong or disobedient manner
knocked-up: exhausted
make a mull of it: to mismanage a situation; to fail; to make a muddle of something
mawkish: falsely sentimental, insipid or nauseating
more than seven: to be knowing or wide-awake, experienced in the ways of the world
mutton-headed: stupid
napping her bib: to cry; to get one’s way by weeping
ring a peal over one: to admonish or scold someone
set up one’s bristles: to irritate or annoy; to offend or make someone angry
spleen: anger
to catch cold: advice to cease or desist; a suggestion that one should cease making threats