October, 2026 - Vanessa Riley's Research Blog and Resource Center

Month: October 2026

03
Oct
2026

Voting in Regency England: Who Could Vote? And Who Could They Vote For?

categories: Government, History, Uncategorized

I’ve always found the process of democracy—and elections in particular—rather fascinating. And as we head into the month of November here at Regency Reflections, we’re going to talk a bit about government.

In Regency England, I’m afraid voting options were rather limited. Britain’s Parliament is (and was) divided into two houses, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The House of Lords was composed of peers who were approved membership by their fellow peers, and these positions in the House of Lords were handed down through heredity. Your regular English coal miner or weaver or farmer had no voice in anything that happened in the House of Lords.

The House of Commons was a little more democratic in nature. These members were “elected,” by counties and boroughs, though a lot of corruption was embedded in the electoral process. When Regency characters in novels and movies mention purchasing a seat in the House of Commons, that’s because the electoral process was so crooked individuals could well “purchase” seats that were supposed to be “elected.”

Further complicating the issue, a Member of Parliament representing a county had to have a yearly income of 600 pounds. And a Member of Parliament representing a borough had to have a yearly income of 300 pounds. Thus election to and involvement in parliament was unattainable for the average Englishman. In fact, lower born sons of peers filled a good number of the seats in Commons for this very reason.

Even more disparaging, all voting was done open ballot, and oftentimes retribution could occur if you voted for the wrong person. For example, if an earl’s third son was running for a seat in Commons and you farmed the earl’s land, you could go cast your vote for the opposing candidate. But you might well loose your rights to farm as a result.

Elections were hardly honest or fair. It was a world where the most elite and wealthy controlled the government and gave the bulk of the country’s citizens very little power. Most citizens were not even allowed to “vote.”

To vote in county elections, a person had to be:

1). Male

Though offensive to most people living today (myself included), this was completely normal for the time period. Women’s suffrage wasn’t even thought of yet.

2). A Property Holder with land worth 40 shillings or more per year

This is known as the forty shilling freehold.

To vote in borough elections, you had to be:

1). Male

2). A resident of the “right” county or borough.

There were a lot of populated cities in Regency England that didn’t get any representatives in the House of Commons. The designated “boroughs” were delineated during the Middle Ages and not changed until 1832. So numerous cities that sprang into existence due to industrialism were denied members to the House of Commons, while some extremely small communities that had been thriving 400 years earlier got to elect officials.

3). Owner of a certain amount of wealth or property.

The degree of wealth and property ownership varied from borough to borough. In some places, the forty shilling freehold stood. In others, not receiving alms or poor relief earned you the right to vote. And in others, simply owning a home gave you opportunity to vote.

So now I’m curious. If you’d been living during the Regency days, do you think you (or your husband) would have been able to vote? I daresay my husband would not own enough property to qualify.

Originally posted 2012-11-05 05:00:34.

02
Oct
2026

The Napoleonic Wars–Who Started Them?

categories: Uncategorized

Whenever I read a Regency novel set during the Napoleonic Wars, I’m interested to see how the war and France are portrayed. Of course France was hated. They were, after all, the bad guys, trying to invade England, take over Europe, and end the world in with some sort of nuclear holocaust (well, maybe not quite that extreme, but you get the picture). And then after you look at France the country, there’s it’s leader: Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican Monster , tyrant, etc.

Yet as the British are sitting on their nice little island, thinking of names to call France’s new ruler, they quite happily forget that Napoleon was much less of a tyrant to the French people than King Louis XVI. Or King Louis XV. Or King Louis XIV. In fact, the average Frenchman and Frenchwoman had a much better life under Napoleon’s rule than under Louis XVI’s.

(Heaven forbid we actually let the French people choose their own ruler rather than foist another wasteful, birth-ordained monarch on them.)

French citizens aside, anyone familiar with the Napoleonic Wars will tell you Napoleon had a lust for power. Though he never claimed to be a king, he did aim to conquer much of Europe. And so, it stands to reason that we’re all lucky England was around to protect the rest of the world from the big, bad Mr. Bonaparte. Correct?

Not exactly.

At the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars, England was much more of a big, bad bully than France. In fact, England—with all its outrage against the Corsican Monster—was the one to start the Napoleonic Wars.

Yes, that’s right. England picked a war with France, not the other way around.

England and France had been enjoying a tenuous peace, as delineated in the Treaty of Amiens, which lasted from the spring of 1802 to 1803. Neither France nor England was doing any of the things it promised to do in that treaty. In fact, England was much more aggressive than France, gathering another coalition of nations to fight France. Napoleon, however, withdrew troops from certain territories he’d agreed to evacuate. In all fairness, both countries signed a treaty that neither intended to honor.

When this finally became clear to England, the country did what it was so very fond of doing two hundred years ago. It declared war. Then the British navy promptly captured two French ships within a matter of days. I can just imagine the conversation between the British and French soldiers as the French were once again losing two of their ships to the Brits.

Frenchman: “But you can’t capture our ship. We’re at peace. Remember that treaty our countries signed last spring?”

Brit: (Laughs cruelly) “We decided to call off the treaty and declare war two days ago. Hadn’t you heard?”

Frenchman: “No! We’ve been at sea for the past three months.”

Brit: “Oh well, we’re taking your ship anyway, and you’ll need to come with us. I’m sure you’ll have a nice time moldering in one of our prison hulks until you die in about three months time.”

Ah yes, England was quite the picture of benevolence two hundred years ago.

So in retaliation, Napoleon rounded up all the Brits visiting France on holiday and interned them in a citadel located in northwestern France.

England was outraged, of course. How dare Napoleon actually fight back!

And so there you have it, the story of how England started the Napoleonic Wars.

Originally posted 2012-11-02 13:10:49.

02
Oct
2026

A Hot Furniture of the Regency by Susan Karsten

categories: History, Podcast - Write of Passage

If you’ve read any significant amount in the Regency genre, you’ve come across references to the décor fashion trend involving Egyptian-style furniture. Ever wondered or imagined what it was like?

It’s clear to me why this particular style is not remembered with fondness and it hasn’t swept back around in nostalgic, retro reoccurrences. Regency culture became fascinated with ancient articles upon the publication of Henry Holland’s book “Etchings of Ancient Ornamental Architecture”. This ushered in a period of interest in the producing of copies of ancient objects coming from Greece, Rome, and Egypt.

comfy?

When the book, “Reproductions of Classical Furniture” by designer Thomas Hope came out in 1807, the Egyptian reproductions using mainly mahogany, but also rosewood and zebrawood, became wildly popular in high echelons of society. The pieces had straight lines, and used symbols as decoration.

In my home, we enjoy a pretty heirloom chair that once belonged to my husband’s grandmother, who was born in 1903. The chair is old, but not Egyptian. It’s been featured in many humble portraits taken in the Karsten home.

It has a problem, however, in that the green velvet-covered, thick-looking seat’s stuffing is completely shot. It’s:

Lovely to look at,

Delightful to touch,

But if you sit,

You’ll find it’s not much.

I happened upon a recent guest stroking this chair’s highly-polished carved wooden back. The reverent look on her face (she didn’t know the seat is corrupt) reminded me of a caution in Matthew 6:19, which says “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.” The Egyptian furniture trend which is long gone and my own pretty chair prove the Truth of the verse all too well.

Originally posted 2012-10-31 10:00:00.

01
Oct
2026

The Hunt

categories: History, Seasons

the lucky man fox hunting — The Lucky Man Fox Hunting by Lionel Edwards

thos_binks The Kill — The Kill by Thomas Blinks

Hunting season is just gearing up here in Maine. Already a few families have caught their moose, which will fill their freezers for the winter. During the Regency era in England, hunting had become the sport of gentlemen, although it wasn’t limited to the aristocratic class. But if you didn’t own land where game could thrive, you depended on permission of the landowner. Poaching was illegal and with punishment if caught of transportation to the penal colonies (i.e. Australia) for seven years (according to the Game Laws of 1816) or injury if you were caught in a “man-trap”. Prior to 1816, penalties were doubtless more severe. But we won’t dwell on that unpleasant topic today.

RedGrouse_Thorburn — Red Grouse on Alert by Archibald Thorburn

Back to hunting as a sport for the idle rich. Pheasant, partridge, hare and rabbit were all “fair game”—pun intended. The official start of hunting season was August 12th “Glorious Twelfth” for red grouse in the north. It coincided with the recess of Parliament for the year, when the gentry flocked north—another pun—out of hot, dirty London for their country estates or those of their friends. The red grouse is a fowl native to Scotland and northern England so those lucky enough to have estates there could probably expect company during the month of August.

Fox hunting was probably the most popular hunting sport of the regency buck (young, all around sporting man of the ton participating in all the debaucheries available to him). Fox hunting gained popularity as the Enclosure Laws of the 1700s shut off more and more open land with stone walls and hedgerows, giving the landless class less space to grow food and the propertied class more area to protect the wild life for their own pleasure. What had begun a few centuries earlier as a defense of farmers against fox damaging their crops evolved into a very structured sport centered in the “Shire” of England, Leicestershire, in the heart of England, an area of rich, flat pastureland ideal for “riding to the hounds.” The town of Melton Mowbray became the center of fox hunting. Three major hunts, the Quorn, the Belvoir (pronounced “beaver”), and the Cottesmore were held here.

Fox hunting went from the beginning of November through March, after the fields had been harvested and would not be damaged by the horses and hounds running over them and ended before the first spring plantings.

If the hunting was good, men were reluctant to return to town, so women, arriving in London in March would complain over the dearth of men in the early part of the season.

The-Hunting-Party-Meal-1737-xx-Nicolas-Lancret — The Hunting Party Meal by by Nicolas Lancret

Dog and horse breeds were gradually selected and improved for hunting: the foxhound breed perfected in the 17^th and 18^th centuries in England for foxhunting, and the Irish hunter becoming the preferred horse for its endurance. Dogs were first used in packs for hunting in the mid-17^th century.

Catherine the Great Wikipedia — Equestrian portrait of the Grand Duchess Yekaterina Alexeyevna

Fox hunting was a man’s sport until the 1830s when the jumping pommel was invented for female side saddles. Before this, if you read about a heroine being just as intrepid a rider alongside the hero in a hunt, she would risk falling off her horse and breaking her neck if she tried such a stunt—unless she rode astride—difficult before the invention of the split skirt in the later Victorian era. A few renown women like Catherine the Great did ride astride but wearing male attire (she also rode side saddle as you can see in the portrait). But being royalty she could get away with this unladylike behavior.

jumping pommel sidesaddle wikipedia — jumping pommel sidesaddle - wikipedia

The jumping pommel sidesaddle had an extra pommel as can be seen in the photograph for the left leg to secured against, in addition to the original pommel for the right leg. Women’s riding habits had long hems on the left side so their ankles would be well covered when they sat atop their horses. This is why they had to drape these long skirts over their left arm when walking. With this new sidesaddle women could gallop and jump fences for the first time.

So until this invention, women had to be content to ride along the roads in carriages, ride sidesaddle on gentle mounts to the meet and then ride home again, or enjoy the sometimes elaborate picnics planned around a hunt.

From:

Wikipedia and blogs: A Web of English History: The Age of George III; Jane Austen’s World; The Jane Austen Centre; Rakehell: Where Regency Lives!; The Word Wenches: Fox Hunting; Shannon Donnelly’s Fresh Ink: The Regency World Horse

Originally posted 2012-10-29 10:00:00.

01
Oct
2026

God in the Regency ~ Part Three ~ Guest Post by Regan Walker

categories: Uncategorized

Regency Reflections is excited to welcome Regan Walker. Over the next three days we will be sharing a paper Regan wrote entitled “God in the Regency”. This three part series will give you a terrific overview of the religious environment and shifts in the Regency period.

Read Part One here.

Read Part Two here.

Other factors should be considered because of how they influenced people’s view of God during this time. New ideas in politics, philosophy, science and art all vied for people’s attention. Two in particular, the scientific discoveries of the time and the Industrial Revolution, may have had dramatic effect on man’s view of his faith during the Regency.

In 1781, while investigating what he and others believed to be a comet, William Herschel, an astronomer, discovered a new planet he named “George’s star,” after King George III. (In 1850, after Herschel’s death, the name would be changed to Uranus.) This was the first planet discovered since ancient times. In 1816, Herschel was knighted, and in 1821 he became President of the Astronomical Society for his achievements. Herschel, a devout Christian, strongly believed that God’s universe was characterized by order and planning. His discovery of that order led him to conclude, “[T]he undevout astronomer must be mad.”

Herschel’s discoveries caused his fellow scientists and theologians to reconsider their prior views of God and the possibility there were other creations in the universe. Not all views expressed were those of believers in God; however, one who was is illustrative of the prevailing attitude. Thomas Dick, a Scottish minister and science teacher, in his book The Sidereal Heavens, published in 1840, said of Herschel’s discovery,

To consider creation, therefore, in all its departments, as extending throughout regions of space illimitable to mortal view, and filled with intelligent existence, is nothing more than what comports with the idea of HIM who inhabiteth immensity, and whose perfections are boundless and past finding out.

Though he wrote this after the Regency, Dick’s statement is indicative of the view during the early 19th-century in which science was dominated by clergymen-scientists, men dedicated to their scientific work but still committed to their faith in God. Scientific discoveries were seen as entirely consistent with a belief in a Creator. Geologist William Buckland, mathematician Baden Powell and polymath William Whewell found little conflict in their roles as clergymen and men of science.

The Industrial Revolution transformed English society during the 18^th and 19^th centuries and would certainly cause people to question the established order of things, including the church. During the 18^th century, England’s population nearly doubled. The industry most important in the rise of England as an industrial nation was cotton textiles. A series of inventions in the 18^th century led to machines that could and did replace human laborers, and the use of new, mineral based materials that replaced those based on animal and vegetable material. The effect of machines replacing workers, particularly in the textile industry, was keenly felt in some parts of England.

During the period 1811-1816, a group called “the Luddites” reacted by smashing thousands of machines developed for use in the textile industries in Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire; thus the Midlands became the center of much unrest. The poor, crippled by bad harvests and taxes and resentful at having no vote, rose up. At times, the clergy would even become involved. For example Hugh Wolstenholme, curate of Pentrich in Derbyshire, took a stand on the side of his parishioners and was critical of the government in the Rebellion of 1817. For his role, he had to flee to America. Interestingly, he attended Trinity College Cambridge when Charles Simeon was the rector.

As England changed from an agricultural to an industrial economy during the 19^th century, the lives of the working class were disrupted and many people relocated from the countryside to the towns. In 1801, at the time of the first census, only about 20% of the population lived in towns. By 1851, the figure had risen to over 50%. New social relationships emerged with the growing working and middle classes. During this time of upheaval and relocation, which began in the Regency, though some individuals, like Charles Simeon, exercised great spiritual influence, the Church as a whole would fail to grapple with the problems that resulted from the huge surge in population and the growth of industrial towns. Still, perhaps both the problems and the movement of people to the towns, where they might have heard the message of the great preachers of the day, spurred them to examine their faith. One can only hope.

Selected Sources and Books/Articles of Interest:
Several of the resources listed below can be clicked on to take you to them.

All Things Austen, An Encyclopedia of Austen’s World, Vols. I & II (articles on the Clergy and Religion) by Kirstin Olsen

Selina, Countess of Huntingdon by Faith Cook

The Bachelor Duke, 6^th Duke of Devonshire 1790-1858 by James Lees-Milne

An Introduction to the History of the Church in England by Henry Offley Wakeman (3^rd edition, 1897 on Google Books)

A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle classes in This Country Contrasted with Real Christianity, by William Wilberforce, 1798

Religious Upheaval During 17^th Century England by Katherine Pym

The Clapham Sect by O. Hardman

Life in the 19^th Century by Tim Lambert

Taylor University: Charles Simeon

Eras of Elegance: Religion and Spirituality

The Regency World of Author Lesley-Anne McLeod