How People Spoke in Regency England

A wonderful post from History and Other Thoughts.

I'm a huge fan of Georgette Heyer's books and one of the things I love the most about them is the way the characters talk. Heyer makes them speak just like people in the Regency era, where her stories are set, spoke and thus use words and expressions that are now forgotten or rarely used. But if you are just starting reading her books, the language may confuse you and leave you feeling puzzled. While with some words it's easy to infer their meaning, with others it's just impossible to make out what they mean. That's why I decided to put together this little vocabulary with a few popular words commonly used in the Regency era and if you like it, I may write more posts like this in the future. Let's get started then:

Apes leader: an old maid or a spinster.

Coxcomb: a conceited and vain person. In origin, it meant "fool" as fools used to wear caps with bells and a piece of red cloth on top which was shaped like a cock's comb.

Corinthian: a dandy, a fashionable man, who is also good at sports. It can also mean a rake. But originally, it meant profligate and derived from the elegant but dissipated lifestyle led in Ancient Corinth.

Foxed: tipsy, drunk.

Fustian: bombast, pompous language, pretentious speech. (Read entire post.)

Share

The Kings and Queens of England

A complete list, for anyone who wants to know. Share

October 5, 1789

Gareth Russell describes the last day at Versailles.

Marie-Antoinette had retreated almost entirely from public view and beyond appointing the impeccably proper marquise de Tourzel to take over as governess to the royal children, the Queen kept herself secluded behind the palace walls. Those close to her could see the strain she was under; one night, Madame Campan, one of her ladies-in-waiting, remembered keeping the Queen company as she stared out her windows until three o'clock in the  morning, reflecting on the fates of all those who had left her. The King confided to a friend that his wife was "much tormented by all that has passed." (Read entire post.)

Share

The Journey of the Infanta

Catherine of Aragon's voyage to England. (Via Gareth Russell.)

Although Henry VII wanted the three year old Catherine sent immediately to England, her parents refused and David Starkey points out that in the 11 years between the signing of the treaty and Catherine arriving in England, there were many times when it looked as if the marriage would be abandoned, for example, in 1492 when Henry VII made the Peace of Étaples with France and when Perkin Warbeck challenged Henry for the English throne. However, on the 18th July 1497, Henry VII ratified new treaties with Spain and at Woodstock, in July 1497, Prince Arthur pledged his troth to Catherine in front of his parents and the court and De Puebla, the Spanish ambassador, acted on behalf of Catherine, pledging her troth to Arthur. The couple were now formally betrothed and wedding preparations began.

After the formal betrothal, Elizabeth of York, Arthur’s mother, started writing to Isabella and Catherine in an attempt to get to know her future daughter-in-law and to establish communications so that preparations could be discussed. As Catherine did not speak English (she spoke Latin and Spanish), it was suggested that she should learn French from her sister-in-law, Margaret of Burgundy, so that there was a common language between Catherine and her ladies in England. Catherine spent the next two years with Margaret and quickly learned French. Elizabeth also made it clear that Catherine’s entourage of ladies should be beautiful and of high birth. Ferdinand and Isabella also had their demands. They demanded that there should be two proxy weddings before Catherine departed Spain for England. On the 19th May 1499 at Bewdley in the Welsh Marches, Arthur and Catherine, represented by De Puebla again, were declared husband and wife. The second proxy wedding took place in December 1500 and this time it even included a wedding feast!

The marriage treaty between England and Spain had specified that the wedding between Catherine and Arthur should take place at the end of Arthur’s 14th year, i.e. September 1500, but although word came that Catherine was to travel in Spring 1500, it did not happen. Isabella of Spain had been grief stricken by the death of her heir and grandson, Dom Miguel, in 1500, just four years after the death of her only son and heir, Don Juan, in 1496. She fell into depression and it is likely that she did not want to be parted from Catherine. Also, in Spring 1500, the Moors of the Alpujarras in Southern Spain rebelled and Isabella and Ferdinand had more pressing things to think about than sending their daughter to England. Catherine’s departure was therefore delayed as the family journeyed south to deal with the revolt.

After the defeat of two rebellions in Southern Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella promised that Catherine would leave Spain for England on the 24th June 1501, the Feast of St John the Baptist. In May 1501, Catherine’s departure was delayed for a few days as the Spanish princess fought off a fever, but she finally left Granada, in Andalusia, on the 21st May to begin her 500+ mile journey to the northern coast of Spain to set sail for England. The extreme heat and the fact that she had to cross mountains meant that the journey was hard and slow. Catherine and her parents did not reach the coastal region of Galicia until early August. A fleet was waiting and Catherine said what must have been a tearful goodbye to her parents and her homeland on the 17th August 1501. I wonder if Catherine realised that she would never see Spain again. (Read entire post.)

Share

Amazon Kindle Fire and Out-of-Print Books Revived

Kindle now comes as Fire.

Amazon has unveiled a colour tablet computer called the Kindle Fire. The $199 (£130) device will run a modified version of Google's Android operating system. Until now, the company has limited itself to making black and white e-readers, designed for consuming books and magazines. As well as targeting Apple's iPad, Amazon is likely to have its sights on rival bookseller US Barnes & Noble, which already has a colour tablet. The Kindle Fire will enter a hugely competitive market, dominated by Apple's iPad. Amazon will be hoping to leverage both the strength of the Kindle brand, built up over three generations of its popular e-book reader, and its ability to serve up content such as music and video. In recent years, the company has begun offering downloadable music for sale, and also has a streaming video-on-demand service in the United States. Those, combined with its mobile application store, give it a more sophisticated content "ecosystem" than most of its rivals. (Read entire article.)

 And....

A digital-only imprint from Bloomsbury.

Bloomsbury Reader has launched with an initial collection of 57 titles from authors such as crime writer HRF Keating and politician Alan Clark. Monica Dickens, great grand-daughter of novelist Charles, is among the other authors whose works are being revived. The imprint will focus on books where English language rights have reverted back to the authors or their estates.

"If people read a book by an author and they love that author, they suddenly want to read everything by that author," said Bloomsbury's Stephanie Duncan. "That's where Bloomsbury Reader comes in because we'll be delivering all those books." (Read entire post.)

Share

The Crown of Saint Wenceslaus

The Czech coronation regalia. From Once I Was a Clever Boy:

The royal crown was dedicated to St. Wenceslas, the principal saint of the kingdom. At the request of the Emperor Charles IV this was confirmed by a bull of Pope Clement VI, which authorised excommunication for any unauthorized person handling the crown. The crown was supposed to be permanently placed on the head of St. Wenceslas and removed only for a coronation or an exceptionally solemn event in Prague or its nearest environs - and for one day only. The crown was in the care of the Metropolitan Chapter attached to St.Vitus's Cathedral.

However these prescribed strict measures were in force up to the end of the fourteenth century at the latest. The coronation jewels were then deposited in Karlštejn Castle. After the outbreak of the Hussite wars in 1419 Sigismund of Luxembourg took them to Hungary, from where they were returned to Karlštejn in 1436. For a short time before the mid-fifteenth century they were also kept at Velhartice Castle and from 1453 to 1619 they were again guarded by two Karlštejn burgraves. From 1619 to 1620 they were kept in a room of the Land Rolls. During the stormy period of the Thirty Years' War the jewels were alternately kept in a cellar in front of the chapel and in secret places outside Prague, for example, in the cellar of the parish church at Ceske Budejovice. (Read entire post.)

Share

The Dual Income and the Poor

An interesting take on the economics of the working family. (Not that I care for Adam Smith.) 

The dual income, of course, has an equally disastrous effect upon housing affordability.  In past generations, a man could buy a small home with his own savings.  Today, not only has the housing market become radically inflated through government-sponsored usury, but since home prices are essentially monopoly prices, selling for the maximum amount the market will bear, having two breadwinners in a majority of homes can only make a landed lower class even less possible.  According to the same Census Bureau report above, the quintile most likely to have only one income (the poorest quintile) constitutes one third of all renters.

Americans do not often consider that such a trend toward dual full-time incomes -- and subsequently, toward the impracticability of properly raising a traditional family with two children -- has already harmed this country substantially.  Conservatives complain of the unfathered children of the most criminal classes, yet they often neglect to propose that a missing mother could harm the family as well.  They complain about a public school system's advocacy for increasingly bankrupt leftist causes, but they will not encourage mothers to fulfill their duty to raise their children.  They complain of the incredible burden associated with an aging population without wondering whether it is actually affordable anymore for traditional families to properly raise more than one to two children.  Simply put, the economic (and thus reproductive) power of the individual household is vital to a host of conservative causes, and yet, for reasons neither logical nor moral, the sacred cow of feminism takes precedence over all of them.

It may perhaps be complained that the woman's worth is not realized when she remains at home, that she is disempowered in her motherly duty.  But the wise know -- not just with their minds, but also with their hearts -- that a mother's value is not reflected solely in the peace of the home and in the stability of nations.  On the contrary, if a society of women arise to their honorable calling, they are amply rewarded in the fortified paychecks of their husbands, and in the affordability of their homes.  This was yesterday's America, steeped in the honor which accompanies the dutiful.  Yet today, the husband depends upon his wife to sustain a wealth they once had without her leaving the home -- a deteriorating financial and reproductive state of the American household for which leftists, of course, propose "remedies." (Read entire article.)

Share

To Be Queen

Crystal vase given by Eleanor of Aquitaine to first husband Louis VII.

 He married out of love, a woman out of legend. Not in Alexandria, or Rome, or Camelot has there been such a queen....~ The Lion in Winter (1968)

To Be Queen by Christy English is a fictional account of the youth of Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122-1204), focusing on her unhappy, scandal-ridden years as Queen of France, before Henry II whisked her away to be Queen of England. In the Louvre is a crystal vase which Eleanor gave to Louis VII as a wedding present, which Louis then donated to his mentor Abbot Suger. In the novel, Eleanor is hurt and furious that Louis would give away one of her family heirlooms, one which she had wanted to pass on to their children. It was one of the many small frustrations which, when heaped together, made her situation untenable; she sought relief from it in danger and passion. While To Be Queen is an imaginative work we must remember that when dealing with Eleanor, the more far-fetched the story is, the more likely it is to be true.

As we journey with Eleanor we see the world she lived in through her eyes. I am pleased to say that the author avoids any feminist anachronisms. Perhaps part of the contemporary fascination with Eleanor is that she is often seen as being a medieval feminist. I doubt that Eleanor saw her actions in terms of being a liberated woman, asserting herself on behalf of the freedom and dignity of women everywhere. Eleanor's motives were usually part of a larger political maneuver which as a queen, a mother and a duchess she found necessary for retaining her power and influence. For a lady of rank, especially rank as exalted as Eleanor's, the loss of power and influence could mean imprisonment or death. Scheming was a matter of expediency; there is no question that she played the game well.

I noticed in some reviews of To Be Queen many people praised Eleanor for being a liberated woman ahead of her time. Although she was unique in many ways, she was not the only medieval woman to have power and rights. According to historian Régine Pernoud in her book Women in the Days of the Cathedrals it is known how heiresses such as Eleanor wielded great authority in their lands but other women as well, including Adela of Blois, Anne of the Ruthenians, Queen of France, and Mathilda of Tuscany. There is much we can learn from them, as the Madame Pernoud explains:

The exercise of supreme political power did not impede them from being women to the full. They had no desire to imitate or copy masculine models. In their behavior, they remained essentially women even when they acted in a military or political field. They did not renounce being admired or loved. Furthermore, they brought to their activity a certain quality of attention to people and even essentially feminine solutions which would have escaped a lord or captain. (Women in the Days of the Cathedrals, pp. 185-186)

In To Be Queen, Eleanor is shown using her feminine genius to protect herself, her people and her family. The embodiment of worldly charm, she is portrayed as an agnostic, coming from a family who has had political struggles with the papacy for years. She views the Church as a monolithic institution intent upon foiling her plans and pleasures, an institution represented by scheming clerics such as Abbot Suger, grumpy Bernard of Clairvaux, and the misogynist Brother Francis, Louis' confessor, who ends up being a master poisoner as well. I would have enjoyed the story better had the Church characters been a bit more textured and less monochromatic but perhaps that is how Eleanor truly saw them. I do think the part about Brother Francis the poisoner is fictional, since the name "Francis" was not yet used in those days before Francis of Assisi. Pope Eugenius is depicted quite well; in spite of Eleanor's bribes he refuses to blithely dish out an annulment but encourages the troubled couple to try to make the marriage succeed. In spite of her unbelief Eleanor often finds herself speaking as a believer, only to catch herself and retreat into apostasy. She is, in spite of everything, seeking a great love.

Unfortunately, Eleanor's husband Louis uses religion as an excuse to gravely neglect his marital duties, which Eleanor, quite naturally, takes as rejection. His constant attitude of disapproval is a signal to the court to be critical of their Queen, who finds herself more and more alienated, surrounded by gossip and blame, censured for her barrenness. As often happens in a case where a person is unjustly accused of certain sins, the person becomes more and more likely to fall; that is what happens to Eleanor in To Be Queen. Love eludes her, however. Her intense, pseudo-mystical relationship with her Uncle Raymond in Antioch almost destroys her. It is only by the grace of the God she does not believe in, and her will to live, that she survives the tempests.

I immensely enjoyed the descriptions of Eleanor and Louis' crusade to the Holy Land and the wonderful places they visited en route and on the journey home. It is easy to forget that what we now call the Middle East was once a region of advancements in medicine, science, mathematics and hygiene. I, like Eleanor, felt enthralled with Constantinople and Antioch. I did not want to leave and I did not want her to leave. Nevertheless, going back to real life was the only way Eleanor could obtain her freedom from an impossible situation. In spite of Eleanor's difficulties with Louis, he is a nuanced character in the novel; it is difficult to hate him because he can be so kindly when he chooses. Eleanor does have an overwhelming personality and Louis is, unfortunately, easily overwhelmed.

Another aspect of the book which especially struck me was how Eleanor's father, Duke William of Aquitaine, went out of his way to train Eleanor how to be a ruler. There were lessons she learned, such as how to maintain a passive expression in tense moments, which would help her in future situations. Whatever else can be said about her, Eleanor was a just and able administrator of her lands, and she had the confidence which comes from being carefully taught. In her life a loving parent was indeed the first and best teacher.

At the end of her life, Eleanor the Queen entered a monastery; before death she took the vows of a nun. Among her great-grandchildren were St. Louis IX of France and St. Ferdinand of Castile. All the royal families of England and most of the great dynasties of Europe were and are descended from her. It seems that all of Louis' prayers paid off in the end.

Here is an interview of Christy English about Eleanor of Aquitaine by Catherine Delors.

Here is my post on Eleanor of Aquitaine and the film The Lion in Winter.

Information on troubadours, whom Eleanor encouraged.

(*NOTE: To Be Queen was sent to me by the author in exchange for my honest opinion.)

Share