Do you remember the first Jane Austen novel you ever read?
My first Jane Austen novel was an illustrated edition of Sense and Sensibility. I was hooked after only one chapter! And it was not only the colorful descriptions and witty dialogue that drew me in—I remember being fascinated but the accompanying illustrations. I know longer own my first copy of Sense and Sensibility, but to this day, I recall the illustrations in vivid detail.
One of the most celebrated illustrators of Jane Austen novels was Charles Edmund Brock. Brock lived from 1870-1938 and is widely recognized for his illustrations and line drawings of novels by Bronte, Elliot, Thackery, and many more. Even though Brock did not live during the regency period, he had a unique ability to capture the essence of the period in his illustrations. Here are a few well-known illustrations for you to enjoy:
Sense & Sensibility:
Don’t you just love that phrase, “How to …”? How-to books, advice columns, lists of do’s and don’ts abound. God’s word has much great advice, and “secrets” abound, especially about loving. For example, Ephesians 4:32:
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Since this one passage is so rich with gems for loving our husbands, let’s go no further.
Be kind to him. Choose kindness, even when he doesn’t earn or deserve it. Think back to how you both showed each other your best during courtship and engagement, were you ever sour, moody, or impatient then?
Be tenderhearted toward him and his failings. Love covers a multitude of sins (failings), so “put on the love cover”(1Peter 4:8) when your husband’s weaknesses affect you. An unexpected smile can go a long way toward softening hearts.
A forgiving attitude will bring peace of mind and peace in your marriage. Try forgiving in advance and not even entering into a dispute or criticism though you are in the right. He will be so relieved that you “let him off the hook”. You will be amazed at the peace that will dwell in your relationship. This forgiving in advance is sometimes called forbearance. God’s forbearing love chose us to be his children, and we should not aspire to anything less.
… This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. Romans 3: 25b
Just touching on scripture’s rich words on forbearing love can inspire us to imitate Christ’s love toward our God-given husbands. Forgiving in advance is a mighty tool from God to improve our marriages.
Welcome to the month of June, that most favored time of year for weddings. With that in mind, we at Regency Reflections thought it would be fitting to run a few posts regarding marriage during the Regency.
Marriage is a big thing, of course, but today we are brought up with the idea that it is only one big thing out of many. If you make a mistake, people know they can always get a divorce. Statistics show that even in the church, divorce, unfortunately, is a well-used option. If you can try to imagine the lives of women in the early 19th century, for them marriage wasn’t “a” big thing–it was THE biggest thing that could happen, setting the course for their lives and futures in ways we only have an inkling of, today.
Marriage Among the Ton
During the regency, fashionable couples often got married at St. George’s Church in Mayfair. Located right at the edge of Hanover Square and only steps from Bond Street, St. George’s was an icon of the fashionable West End. In my book, The House in Grosvenor Square, Ariana Forsythe’s wedding to the Paragon, the handsome but temperamental Mr. Mornay, is planned for St. George’s.
St. George’s Hanover Square, Parish Church
In 1816 (a banner year) there were 1,063 weddings, including nine on Christmas Day! Yet the aristocracy often chose to forego St. George’s in favor of the chapel on their own estates; or sometimes they married in their home in a small, private affair with just a few witnesses. Even Lord Byron was married in such a way.
A few infamous weddings are detailed on this page of St. George’s website, where, by the way, you can find contact info. to schedule your own wedding if you happen to live in London and wish to be married! (You’d also have to be Anglican, I suppose.)
Celebrating
There seems to have been little protocol regarding how to celebrate a wedding during the regency, at least in the fashionable world. People might hold a breakfast, lunch or supper for their friends and family, or they might not. Church weddings were “open to the public” but unless the individuals getting married were celebrities (though never called such in that day) most people wouldn’t dream of bothering to attend the ceremony. Likewise, wedding invitations were hardly thought of. Getting married was most often a simpler, more private affair than it is today, and reading that Miss so-and-so had married Lord X in the Morning Post was deemed sufficient.
Princess Charlotte's Wedding Dress. Not white, as you can see.
The poorer classes, on the other hand, were likely to celebrate with parties before, during, and after the nuptials took place. In Scotland, the “penny wedding” could include the whole town, and at least two days of revelry.
A White Gown?
The white dress for women was not in vogue specifically for weddings, likely because white gowns had long been popular evening-wear for any formal occasion. According to English Women’s Clothing in the Nineteenth Century, “The symbolic significance of white is well known and of great antiquity; we may note, however, that while a girl’s first ball gown was generally white, the bridal dress was by no means invariably so.”
For the year 1816 it states,”Note: Wedding dresses appear indistinguishable from evening dresses.”
Women of means would wear the fanciest fabric they could afford for their weddings, and not only in white. The custom of putting away the gown after the ceremony didn’t exist, and so wedding gowns were chosen with future use in mind. For regency men, by 1820 a proper “wedding suit” would be “a blue dress coat with gilt buttons, white waistcoat, and black or dark gray breeches.”* Again, it was a costume one could use over and over.
(Strange that today we put so much emphasis on a special gown and suit for the wedding, when the marriages themselves are so often treated as less sanctified?)
To Veil or Not to Veil?
There was no custom of veiling the face for a wedding, although veils were popular. A short lace veil might be part of a bonnet for walking dress, for example. Likewise, trains were used for evening dress, assuredly not the domain of weddings. Perhaps the most telling feature of historical costume concerning weddings during this period is that while you can find multitudinous examples of morning, walking, evening, full, promenade, half-dress, riding, carriage and even opera, etc., one never comes across a category for wedding dress. It simply did not exist. (In English Women’s Clothing it is found as a category by 1851.)
This ought to be good news for authors of regency romance, like me: instead we yearn to find the “right” way to portray a bride, when in fact there was no truly “right” way.
To show how many of the ball gowns of the day look suspiciously like wedding dresses to our modern eyes, take a look at some of the illustrations below, for example.
NONE OF THE FOLLOWING ARE WEDDING GOWNS
left– Comptesse–1810
Above, and right, 1816
The first bridal dress portrayed in English Women’s Clothing is dated 1848 and is of white satin, very ornamental, and with a veil that falls down the back, not over the face.
Are you interested in more details on wedding costume during the regency? On actual weddings that took place, or exactly how the marriage banns were worded? If you think you might purchase my upcoming ebook, The Making of A Match: A Regency Wedding Compendium, please take this short survey and let me know! It will help me gauge interest, and know exactly what to include in the ebook. Thank you!
Linore
http://www.LinoreBurkard.com Linore (at) LinoreBurkard (dot) com
Murder in Parliament sounds like the title of a mystery novel. Sadly, the title is the raw truth. On may 11, 1812, an assassin walked up to the prime minister and shot him. The Right Honorable Spencer Perceval died within minutes of the shooting, and the killer turned himself in moments after that.
The Right Honorable Spencer Perceval courtesy of http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spencer_Perceval.jpg
Murder is always tragic, and this one made more so for its seeming pointlessness. At first, before details were known, some thought the assassination a French plot. After all, the French seemed to be winning the war. The British weren’t doing well on the continent at any rate. Why not disrupt the government with an assassination? But, no, the killing shot was triggered from the hand of an individual, a subject of Great Britain, John Bellingham.
John Bellingham photo courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:John_Bellingham_portrait.gif
So why did John Bellingham have special pockets sewn into his coat to hold his pistols concealed? Why did he wait in the lobby of Parliament, wait for Perceval to appear, then walk up and shoot him through the heart?
Many said he was insane, that he must be insane. Others denied this fact, one of those being John Bellingham himself. Another who said he was sane was Sir James Mansfield, the judge who presided over his brief trial and pronounced his immediate sentence.
Bellingham wanted justice. He may or may not have been the John Bellingham who went to sea as a midshipman in the 1780s. That ship went aground after the crew mutinied. He may have been the same John Bellingham who’s tin business in London failed a few years later. No one is quite sure. That he worked in a counting house is certain. He also went to Russia for importers and exporters, and there is where the real troubles began.
A ship insured by Lloyds of London was lost in the White Sea. Before the merchants could collect on the insurance, Lloyds received an anonymous letter saying the ship had been sabotaged. Suspecting Bellingham was the author of said letter, the owners of the vessel claimed he owed a substantial debt, which landed Bellingham in a Russian prison. A year later, he managed his release, went to St. Petersburg, and dove into more trouble that landed him back into a Russian prison. He was released in 1808, received permission from the czar to leave Russia, and ended up back in England in 1809—to no happy homecoming.
Bellingham petitioned the British government for compensation for his imprisonment in Russia. But nothing was forthcoming. Due to Russia’s relationship with France at the time, the British had broken off diplomatic relations with Russia. At the persuasion of his wife, Bellingham gave up and went to work, but tried again in 1812.
Allegedly, a civil servant at the foreign office told Bellingham he could take whatever measures he thought proper. I expect this clerk thought Bellingham would write letters or even waylay someone like Lord Gower, the British ambassador to Russia at the time of Bellingham’s imprisonment in that country.
Bellingham, however, made other plans. He bought the pistols, had the pockets made, and executed his plan as Perceval strode through the lobby of Parliament.
Assassination photo courtesy of http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Assassination_of_Spencer_Perceval.jpg
One can dismiss the incident as someone with a grievance taking it out on the highest person he could reach. One might think that people would be appalled by him and call out with joy at his hanging. On the contrary. Much sentiment lay with Bellingham. He had carried out justice and maybe in the future, those in high places would listen when petitioned by a wronged common man.
Indeed, though no one—or perhaps a few far-sighted thinkers of the time—realized that this assassination did change the course of history, that John Bellingham’s actions brought about justice. A different government came into power after Perceval leadership was gone, a government that reenacted much needed reforms that helped the poor.
As for Bellingham’s family. A collection was taken, and his family ended with far more money than they had before his dastardly deed and consequent execution.
