Regency hijinks

     Pat here:

I’ve just turned in the revisions for The Wicked Wyckerly (the book formerly known as Honest Scoundrel) and I’m muddling out the first draft of The Devilish Montague. 

Muddle is the best word for what I’m doing at the moment. The problem is that I’ve been writing Georgian historicals for over a decade now, and I need to wrap my head back in Regency dates. And not even proper Regency since Wyckerly is 1807 and Montague is 1808. Prinny isn’t Regent yet. Lady Cowper (must remember this is pronounced Cooper) and Lady Jersey are barely out of adolescence, although married and having children, or in the process thereof. I have to slap my hand from including Lord Byron quotes since the boy (he was only 20) had only just published his first collection of poetry to scathing reviews. (Yes, critics even despised Byron) I’m familiar with all these names and personalities, but keeping them to young adulthood seems to be throwing me for a loop.

Really, if you think about it, the names so familiar to Regency readers were nothing but an overly indulged brat pack in the early 1800s.  Lady Jersey (her mother-in-law was the notorious mistress of the Prince of Wales) and the Countess of Lieven were only 22 in 1807. Lady Cowper was the same age as Byron, 20.  In a few short years, the ladies will turn an old-fashioned casino called Almacks into the biggest snob club in London.  Can’t you just imagine all these wealthy, bored twenty-somethings deciding to form an exclusive assembly where they could reject everyone they didn’t like? My, how times don’t change. (Emily, Lady Cowper on the left; stylized Thomas Lawrence oil of the prince on the right above)

So here I am with this twenty-three-year-old heroine who knew all these snotty brats before they married their powerful husbands. It’s easy enough to play off the usual Regency stereotype of a bunch of idiosyncratic old married women running a Marriage Mart, but not in 1808.  This requires work. Research. Carrying scraps of fact to natural conclusions. While I struggle with a plot line that’s run amuck. When memory and fact clash, I can run into serious trouble! (Almacks on the right, Brummel below)

Does anyone know if any of the well-known personalities from this era ended up with a long, happy, honorable life? I think we all know how Brummel and Byron ended up, but what about the ladies? Their elders certainly weren’t good examples of living healthy, moral lives, but surely some of their offspring overcame their early training?

Do you think it was wealth or experience that drove these ambitious young ladies to polish their power-mongering skills at such an early age? When you were 20, what power did you wield and what did you dream you would become? Has life provided enlightenment or disillusion since then?

Comments

[Linda Banche]

There were very few outlets for ambitious women in the early 1800's. They couldn't go to college and study for a profession, they couldn't go into politics (they could only marry a politician), they couldn't run a business and still remain ladies. The social sphere was the only option they had to wield power.

What a waste of ambition. Unfortunately, you still see the same thing nowadays. All those books with "Virgin" in the title that this blog discussed on Monday are examples. Instead of having a powerful woman businessperson as the heroine, the woman is a little nothing defined solely by her sex.

Twenty is an age of dreams, when you think you can do anything, when in reality you can't. But nowadays we can dream in ways those 18th century women couldn't even imagine. History can't be changed, but I wonder about modern books that glorify being a slave to an outdated world that never was very good to women.

[Susan/DC]

What I found fascinating about today's blog was how young these women were. Even at the height of the Regency, these women were in only in their 30s. Going by the way they are portrayed in many Regency-set historicals, I would have guessed they were in their 50s. While 50 isn't exactly ancient, especially for the upper classes who presumably had decent nutrition, it's a very different age bracket from what these women actually were. Thank you -- I'll now view Lady Cowper and the others with a more accurate light when they appear as characters in the books I read.

[Patricia Rice]

You're right, of course, Linda. A woman with ambition had limited outlets, and these weren't stupid women, on the whole. I think we can see remnants of this same societal power-wielding over a century and more later.
I'm wondering if the Virgin title thing isn't another of those male-buyer idiosyncrasies that we suffered in early romance days--appeal to the sales guys. I can't imagine why the title would appeal to women.
And glad I shed a little light, Susan. I think we all had a tendency to think of the Almacks ladies as crotchety old hags. Crotchety, they may have been "G" but not old. Although I assume back then, 35 was very mature.

[Anne Gracie]

Fascinating post, Pat. I'd love to see a novel all about the formation of Almacks and the behind the scene discussions and decisions.

IMO Almacks was a valiant effort to hold back the tide of... shudder... democracy. ;) The industrial revolution was breeding up a new class of "Nouveau Riche" and people without the "correct" breeding or background were starting to swan around the edges of English Society, flashing their wealth and wangling invitations to social occasions run by individual aristocrats.

So naturally this had to be stopped. The establishment of an exclusive assembly venue, where you had to be approved before you could even buy a ticket, and where no exceptions to the rules were made, not even for Wellington -- well, it's irresistible, isn't it? And IMO young women are much more likely to be interested in this kind of exclusivity than men.

And if it hadn't been started by young glamorous society women, it wouldn't have been regarded as the cool place to go. A group of crotchety old hags wouldn't have been able to bring that cachet of regency coolth and glamor to Almack's that the place seemed to have had

[Janice]

These young female regency socialites don't seem all that different to me than more modern young women. Every high school had its cliques, its 'mean girls', its bluestockings and its outcasts.

I think Almack's etc. stemmed from the same impulse many young women have, to say 'I'm important & worthwhile because you're not'. They have to put someone else down to stay up themselves. It is of course based on a secret terror of losing position and thereby control (however slight) over their own lives.

One thing I like about reading regencies is that so much of human nature has never changed and, since it's based on our animal survival instincts, probably never will. The regency we read about is such a tight little society that it's like viewing these human qualities in a bell jar - limited and concentrated so that we can study them, and learn not to act like that ourselves.

[Sue]

At 20 I thought myself old, grown up and invincible! I had absolutely no self doubt and really did believe I could do anything I wanted.
In Regency times and late Georgian, 20 was old as many women were married with at least one child by then. Imagine the freedom of 35 with children at Eton or almost ready to leave the school room. What I always wanted to know was who chose the patronesses of Almacks? It was such an exclusive club -"The Marriage Mart" and the patronesses became the power brokers of London at that time, with more influence than any elected politician.
I enjoyed this post very much Pat and look forward to your book.

[Patricia Barraclough]

I think it was ambition and the wealth to back it that
paved the road for their success at such an early age. A group of catty, spoiled young women who wanted to guarantee their social position and power for years to come.
At 20 I had no power. I was in college and wanted to join the Peace Corps, then work for UNESCO. I managed the Peace Corps and it was a wonderful experience. Marriage to a military man and a family sort of derailed UNESCO. There are times I miss the international scene and the type of work I would have been doing, but I've been an active volunteer wherever we have lived so that has helped. There are always ways you can help and be involved. I have a wonderful family and that can't be replaced by a job, even one I love. I chose my family as my job and don't regret it.

[Patricia Rice]

Ooo, Anne, you've given me an idea for one of my guys--if I can remember it until I get to his book!

I haven't researched Almack's per se. I know it was an old establishment, but fairly open to the public as a casino. Men and women generally did not frequent the same public places and I can't remember if Almack's was a place where they could. But I'm wagering no one "chose" the ladies. I think they probably bought the place and turned themselves into power mongers.

And yes, just think of the world of good 20-somethings could do if they could turn their minds to helping others instead of themselves! Wonder how we go about developing a world like that?

[kay]

When I was 20, I knew everything and was ready to do something, didn't know what but something. I've always imagined that these women (the Regency brat packers) were pretty isolated and probably bored with what was available to them, even though they had all of that wealth and the advantages that wealth brings.

[Nicola Cornick]

Great post, Pat, and I was so interested in the fate of the patronesses of Almacks that I went to look up what happened to them in later life. Lady Jersey's biography is fascinating. In addition to being a society hostess she was the owner and senior partner of Child's Bank and kept a desk at the office. Apparently she was an active partner and did not delegate her responsibilties to her husband or to any other man (good on her!) She also took an active interest in the welfare of her estate workers and set up a number of schools for the benefit of the children of tenants and labourers. She lived to be 72. I think one could say she matured as she grew older!

[Cara Elliott/Andrea Pickens]

Pat, you pose such interesting and provocative questions. It would take fare more space than is available here to give good answers. But to keep it simple, I agree with Linda B that these young Regency women had so few outlets for their talents and imagination. Every way they turned, they were trapped by convention, and for the most part their ideas and opinions were dismissed as meaningless simply on account of their sex. Can you imagine how frustrating that must have been for a female with any inquisitiveness? I shudder to think of it!

No wonder they put their energy into Almack's, etc. It at least allowed them to make decisions and feel they had some control over their lives.

That said, as we all know, twenty-somethings can be incredibly self-centered. (I'm giving another shudder recalling my own actions at that age.) One really does tend to think one knows it all. Though of course one is far too dumb to be aware of how little one really understands of the world.

[Patricia Rice]

LOL, I was also one who knew it all when I was 20. And I was right. "G"

Nicola, cool insight on Lady Jersey! I knew she ended up with her father's bank, but now we can see why everyone called her dour and hard to deal with and all that! They were being spiteful to a brainy bluestocking who knew more than they did!