Monthly Archives: April 2015

Birthdays In History

Updated on October 15, 2022 by Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee

I am crawling out briefly from a revision/research cave to celebrate the birthday of a woman who may not be particularly well-known in history, but who I’ve always found to be interesting, Hortense de Beauharnais, daughter of Empress Josephine, a woman whose life was made very unhappy by duty to her stepfather, but who managed to carve out a small happiness and role for herself. Who are some of your own favorite lesser-known heroines???

Hortense Eugenie Cecile de Beauharnais Bonaparte, daughter of Empress Josephine, Queen Consort of Holland, mother of Napoleon III, and interesting woman in her own right! She was born on April 10 in 1783.

Hortense was born in Paris, the daughter of the nobleman Alexandre, vicomte de Beauharnais and his wife Josephine, their second living child (she had an older brother, Eugene). Her parents’ marriage was never very happy, and they separated informally soon after her birth. Her father was guillotined on July 23, 1794, a few days before the end of the Terror, and her mother barely escaped with her life. Josephine was released from prison and reunited with her children on August 6, but it was a struggle to maintain the family financially. Two years later Josephine married Napoleon, and Hortense was later sent to be educated at the school of Madame Campan (who had been a lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette) in St-Germain-en-Laye, along with Napoleon’s sister Caroline. Hortense made many friends at school, and became well-known for her pretty blonde looks and her musical skill (she later composed marches for her stepfather’s Army). One of her friends at this school was US President Monroe’s daughter Eliza, who later named her own daughter Hortensia.

In 1802, Hortense married Napoleon’s brother Louis Bonaparte, despite her misgivings, and they went on to have 3 sons despite a very rocky marriage (Napoleon Louis Charles, 1802-1807; Napoleon Louis, 1804-1831; and Charles Louis Napoleon, 1808-1873, who went on to become Emperor of France). In 1806 Louis became King of Holland, and Hortense set up her court at The Hague, taking refuge from her unhappy marriage in social events and friendships (including those with handsome men!). They were deposed in 1810, but Louis remained in Holland for another 3 years, writing poetry in privacy, until forced to return to France in 1813. The couple then lived separate lives.

Hortense fell in love with Colonel Charles Joseph, the comte de Flauhaut, a man renowned for his handsome looks, sophisticated intelligence, and rumored to be the illegitimate son of Talleyrand. In 1811, at a secluded inn in Switzerland, Hortense gave birth to their son, Charles Auguste Louis Joseph (who was later made duc de Morny his half-brother). After the defeat of Napoleon and the Bourbon Restoration in 1814 Hortense received the protection of Tsar Alexander and went on living at her estate, but when her stepfather returned she supported him. On his final defeat at Waterloo, she traveled to Germany and Italy before settling at the Chateau of Arenenberg in Thurgau in 1817. There she worked on her music, had parties with her friends, and fell in love once in a while. She lived there until her death on October 5, 1837 and was buried next to her mother at St-Pierre-St-Paul church near Malmaison.

Information on Hortense’s life can be found in any biography of Josephine or Napoleon III. A couple books I like are:
Nina Epton, Josephine: The Empress and Her Children (1976)
Francois Jarry, Hortense de Beauharnais (1999). This one is in French, which I read very slooooowly, but worth the effort!

Posted in Former Riskies, Research | 2 Replies

Research More Research: The Dukeries, Cheese, A Flycatcher, and Cows

Updated on October 15, 2022 by carolyn

I’m busy working on a historical novella for an anthology that will be out this June. I have no idea what my story will be titled yet, but the anthology title is Dancing in The Duke’s Arms. It’s a spin off, if you will, from the Christmas anthology Christmas in The Duke’s Arms. The same authors are participating: Grace Burrowes, Miranda Neville, Shana Galen, and me.

We chose Nottinghamshire as the location for our first anthology, and as we were discussing the follow up, we decided we would set the stories in the in real life location of The Dukeries, so called because there are four ducal estates located here, and they are more or less contiguous.

Wikipedia has a sufficient explanation. But The Dukeries – Sherwood Forest has a more picturesque one. Not one, not two, but FOUR ducal estates. And so, our anthology will have a surfeit of dukes and ducal estates.

Every book has its own ethos that requires research. For me, with my uniquely Carolyn style of writing, it works like this: Huh. Everyone is sitting around having tea and this is kind of boring. I wonder what local specialty they’re eating? The answer to that turned out to be Colwick Cheese. This cheese was long a specialty of Nottinghamshire. There were websites that implied this was a newer cheese not from our period, but Google and Advanced Google Book Search demonstrated that this was incorrect. British regulations around the turn of the 20th century did result in the disappearance of this cheese. But recently, it’s had a revival. Originally, the cheese was made by pouring spoiled milk into cheesecloth and letting it hang outside until all the water dripped out. The cheese formed a kind of bowl. It was often served with cream, fruit, or preserves in the bowl, and, though I can’t confirm the period part of this, sometimes the additions were savory.

And so, I had my interesting addition to tea. You’ll notice, on that website, a link called Red Poll. This is a kind of cow. It is, not surprisingly, red. This breed of cow is a good milk producer and I found a great deal of information praising this local cow. Why, since it turns out my heroine loves estate management, she could have Red Polls! However, it did not take long to discover that this breed was established well after the Regency, and so it was not possible for my story. But, it turns out she could have another red cow, the Red Leicester. Well, OK! I have learned some very interesting things about cows that I did not know before.

From there, I needed to describe the heroine’s house. I knew (don’t ask why, I just knew, OK?) that she lived in a house with lots of trees shading it and that there was a vine on the house. All right then. What kind of vines do they have in Nottinghamshire? Because, what if it’s not just ivy? More searches and before long I had found the Nottingham Flycatcher. This was perfect because it was known for growing on the walls of Nottingham Castle. Nottingham Flycatcher has a fragrant scent and attracts lots of moths and insects to the nectar. Perfect! This, too, could grow on my heroine’s house, and when the windows were open in the summer, rooms would surely smell lovely. I know this is true because right now this minute there is jasmine blooming on our deck and when the windows are open and a breeze comes along, the kitchen smells faintly of jasmine. I was saddened to learn that Nottingham Flycatcher is now extinct in Nottinghamshire. In the 1930’s the Flycatcher was removed from Nottingham Castle during renovations. It doesn’t appear to be entirely extinct, but I also learned that fully 98% of Britain’s wildflower habitat is gone. That is tragic.

As I’ve continued to write, the story no longer opens at the heroine’s house, and now I have to decide whether to move the Nottingham Flycatcher to my duke’s estate. Then it turned out that my heroine, while visiting the duke’s estate, is going to walk along the driveway and count trees. (Really, don’t ask. Maybe that won’t even stick. It’s too early to tell.) So, what kind of trees? I knew that lime trees are a common tree. Many period descriptions of estate reference driveways lined with lime trees. So. What do these lime trees look like? Somehow, I didn’t think they were the kind of lime trees that grow limes, and indeed, they are not. British Lime trees are very tall and beautiful and give loads of shade. There are lots of images of magical lime tree avenues. Like this one at Clumber Park. This is especially awesome because Clumber Park is one of the four estates of the Dukeries. It doesn’t even matter that those lime trees weren’t planted until 1840. My duke planted his way earlier. It’s called fiction for a reason.

And so, here I am madly writing a novella and having the best time ever researching cheese, and cows, and lime trees, and flycatchers. There will be more moments like this as I write because that’s just how I roll.

Posted in Former Riskies, Research, Writing | Tagged Colwick Cheese, I love this story, Lime Tree Avenues, Nottingham Flycatcher, Red Poll Cows, The Dukeries | 7 Replies

A Seekrit Project & the Growing of Sandy’s Research Library

Updated on October 15, 2022 by Sandra Schwab

So I spent most of the day staring at my computer screen half-petrified because I realized this morning that today is April Fool’s day & I have to write a post &, oh my gosh, do I need to write something funny?!!?!? I’ve toyed with several amusing headlines – “The Riskies Will Only Write Zombie Books From This Day On! (and our heroes’ manly appendages will all fall off all the time!!) (or something),” or, “We Just Wanted To Tell You That We Are All Aliens From Outer Space Pretending To Be Romance Authors, But Please Don’t Mind Us & Carry On” – but, well…

Instead of talking about zombies, wonky manly appendages, and aliens, I’ve decided to turn to much nicer things, like my super-seekrit project: I’ve taken part in a multi-author box set of sweet romances, which came out earlier this week. And did I mention that the box set is free? 🙂

I also caved in and added a few more titles to my research library. Among other things, I’ve finally ordered Chatsworth: The Attic Sale, the catalogue of the auction at Sotheby’s in 2010. In expect to find many interesting items in there! Here’s a short YouTube video about the auction:

Moreover, I also stumbled across a number of fascinating research experiments in the form of historical enactments, of which two are of particular interest to the Regency period: in Pride & Prejudice: Having a Ball a Regency ball is staged at Chawton House, the estate of Austen’s brother. The documentary is only 90 minutes long (or rather, short), but it still provides some fascinating insights into the practicalities of preparing the food, of the dancing itself, and the supper that followed.

And then I also found a series about music in the country house. I briefly dipped my toe into this field when I wrote Springtime Pleasures and had my heroine swapping music books with her new friend. “Music’s Hidden Histories” is a joint project of the University of Southampton and Tatton Park. The short videos are all available via the Humanities Southampton YouTube channel:

For now, though, I’m going to return to Roman antiquity and my dashing centurion Marcus Florius Corvus. I’m really looking forward to celebrate the launch of this new series with you next month!

You can find Love Is All You Need on Amazon US, UK, CA, Kobo, Apple, B&N. Happy reading!

Posted in Former Riskies, Music, Regency, Research, Writing | 5 Replies

“‘Pickles’ left behind”

Updated on April 27, 2015 by Rose Lerner

Two weeks ago, I finally wrote “The End” on the rough draft of my next book, Listen to the Moon, out in January. (It’s book 3 in my Lively St. Lemeston series, starring Toogood and Sukey, the valet and maid from book 1.) Woooo!

But when I say rough, I mean ROUGH. Part of my process for going from “rough draft” to “clean draft I can send to my friends with only a minimum of shame” involves looking up a lot of words in the Oxford English Dictionary (thank god, the Seattle Public Library has a subscription) to see if they were in use during the Regency.

One word I looked up was “epergne.” I had the vague idea this was some kind of large silver thing used as a centerpiece on a dinner table. Maybe a vase? But I discovered to my surprise that it is a “centre-dish, or centre ornament for the dinner-table, now often in a branched form, each branch supporting a small dish for dessert or the like, or a vase for flowers. (From our quots. it appears that the earlier use was chiefly to hold pickles.)” !!!

The relevant quotations are:

“1761 Bill of Fare in Pennant London (1813) 562, 2 Grand Epergnes filled with fine Pickles.[…]
1804 Verses to Dr. Warton in Ann. Reg. 928 [His pupils present him with an epergne on his resigning the head-mastership of Winchester, hoping that it may remind him ‘of “Pickles” left behind’].”

[ETA: I want to clarify that this doesn’t mean epergnes were ONLY used to hold pickles. Another quotation, from 1779, mentions using one for sweetmeats. But I think the 1804 quote makes the strength of the association clear.]

Of course, this is slightly less limiting than it might sound to us—while “pickles” have come to refer primarily to pickled cucumbers, in the Regency it could mean any pickled dish. Take a look at “Pickle” in the index of Hannah Glasse’s Art of Cookery to get an idea of the possible variety! Ox palates, red currants, walnuts, and “elder shoots in imitation of bamboo” are just a few of the most picturesque recipes.

Epergne by Thomas Pitts, London, 1761. Image credit: Daderot via Wikimedia Commons. Notice the pineapple topper! We’ll be talking more about pineapples later.

This got me thinking about other kinds of dishes with specific purposes that have passed out of fashion. A few of my favorites:

1. The seau à glace, or ice-pail, used for serving ice cream at table. Assembled, it looked like this:

Flight & Barr, Worcester, 1782-1802. Image credit: Daderot via Wikimedia Commons.

The lid is filled with ice, and the central bowl can be lifted out and the bottom of the pail filled with more ice. In this way ice cream can be kept cold on the dinner table for up to four hours (!), if salt is added to the ice. To see one in use, scroll to the bottom of Ivan Day’s wonderful page on Georgian and Victorian ice cream (and look in the left sidebar for a picture of one completely disassembled).

If you’re as charmed by this dish as I am, some helpful soul has assembled an entire Pinterest board of them, and they’re all wonderful!

2. The turtle soup tureen. “Turtle dinners,” or dinners at which turtle soup was the central dish, were a popular form of lavish entertainment in the second half of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth.

(They were especially popular at civic celebrations like the Lord Mayor’s Feast, etc. The association was strong enough by 1834 that I came across this quotation from Blackwood’s Magazine in the OED in the entry for “swallow, v.”: “Dosy, who sate in open-mouthed wonder, swallowing them [sc. his stories] down as a common-councilman swallows turtle.”)

I also read a quote (which I can’t now dig up but I’ll give it another shot this afternoon) about one enthusiastic candidate’s wife attending five turtle dinners in a week as part of campaigning for her husband during the 1754 general election. Oy!

You can read more about this custom (and about where all the turtles came from) in this article.

(Mock turtle soup was created to cheaply imitate the fashionable delicacy. As Wikipedia says, “It often uses brains and organ meats such as calf’s head or a calf’s foot to duplicate the texture and flavour of the original’s turtle meat.” Heinz used to make a canned variety that only went out of production in the 1970s—you can see a picture of a can as well as some old recipes here.)

Anyway, special tureens were made shaped like turtles to hold the soup. I’ve seen them now and then in museums; the article linked above contains a photo of a splendid example in silver at the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts.

3. And possibly my favorite for sheer whimsy…the pineapple stand! The pineapple was a fad luxury item in eighteenth and early nineteenth century England in rather the way tulips were in 17th century Holland. By the Regency the initial craze, which led to things like the building of a giant stone pineapple-shaped conservatory, had passed…

The Dunmore Pineapple, built by the Earl of Dunmore in 1761. Image credit: Davidw82, via Wikimedia Commons.

…but pineapples remained a popular display of wealth and glamor. Whole pineapples were used as table centerpieces (and sometimes were taken away again by the caterers at the end of the night without being eaten!). This blog post contains two beautiful examples of porcelain pineapple stands by Spode, one from 1813 and one from 1820, with an explanation of their use. These are clearly designed for the whole pineapple to stand in the center surrounded by sliced pineapple, as is this lovely boat-shaped stand, but some, like this cut glass one…clearly are not.

Honorable mention goes to the Solomon’s Temple pudding mold, popular for nearly two centuries. You can see pictures of a variety of molds AND, incredibly, a video of the finished pudding wobbling comically, at this awesome blog post by Ivan Day, who explains, “Because it is made of flummery, which is a kind of opaque milk jelly, the central obelisk wobbles and cavorts in a most entertaining manner, while the four little cones shake, rattle and roll in a very naughty way.”

What’s your favorite single-purpose serving dish? Teapots? Salt and pepper shakers? Gravy boats? Tell me all about it!

Posted in Food, Regency | 10 Replies

New Regency Romance Miniseries – The Brides of Waterloo

Updated on April 26, 2015 by diane

Diane here! It is my pleasure to introduce our guest bloggers today. As you may know, Harlequin Historicals are edited by the Mills and Boon offices in the UK. One of the pleasures of writing for them is getting to know the UK authors. These are women who live on moors, shop in London, visit stately homes. Sigh! I envy them! Today please welcome three of them who have an exciting series to tell you about (and a mystery goody bag to give away to one lucky commenter). Here they are!

Sarah Mallory

Put any three romance writers together with a glass or two of wine and, if they are friends and have interests in common, sooner or later one of them will say, “I’ve had a great idea… Shall we collaborate on it?” On this occasion we were the three writers in question – Sarah Mallory, Annie Burrows and Louise Allen.

Annie Burrows

It was Sarah who had the idea – she’d just visited Waterloo and had been very moved by the stories that were bound up with that momentous battle. Knowing the bicentenary would be a very important occasion she wanted to do something personal to mark it and suggested three linked books to Annie and Louise.

Louise Allen

We’ve been friends for years, and we all write Regency historicals, so Waterloo is a familiar background for all of us. Fortunately Sarah had her brainwave with plenty of time to plan, so we waylaid the senior Harlequin Mills & Boon Historicals editor at a conference and pitched the idea. When she accepted the concept of the Brides of Waterloo trilogy the hard work began!

We had all worked on collaborations and linked books before, and we knew it was essential to be able to discuss ideas and to negotiate over what did and didn’t work for us and our characters. Fortunately we soon agreed that our three stories would overlap in action and in time, but would also stand alone as complete stories in their own right.

It only took a few emails for us to agree what we wanted to write and after that we began to plan our books, each using a character from the artillery unit we had created, affectionately known as Randall’s Rogues (think of a Regency Dirty Dozen!) Sarah’s story begins before the battle, Annie’s starts as it is being fought and Louise’s begins the morning after, on the battlefield. Our characters are linked by blood – Sarah’s hero and Annie’s heroine are brother and sister, Louise’s hero is their half-brother.

Most of our communication was by email, although we did meet up occasionally at Romantic Novelists’ Association events. Emails flew thick and fast and we started to use spreadsheets to plot the timelines and to keep a note of our characters. Modern technology was hugely important in our collaboration, although on one memorable occasion Annie and Sarah did get together in the café of a large bookshop to work out one of the battle scenes with the use of the cruet set, sugar basin and napkins. That attracted a few bemused looks from other customers!

All three of us have been researching the Regency period for years, but this trilogy meant we needed to find out more about the military aspects of the battle. The personal stories of our three heroes were paramount, of course, but we had to set them in the right background. We read books on Waterloo by respected military historians, visited exhibitions and talked to re-enactors, as well as contacting a Waterloo tour guide who has made the battle his life study.

Sarah’s hero in A Lady For Lord Randall is Justin Latymor, Lord Randall, the colonel of the artillery unit. He is a career soldier with no time for romance, until he meets Mary Endacott, a radical young teacher who challenges his authority. She is opposed to everything Lord Randall represents and not afraid to say so, but once she falls in love with Randall she proves herself to be every bit as courageous as her man.

Annie’s hero is the unit’s resident rake, Major Tom Bartlett, in A Mistress For Major Bartlett. Left for dead on the battlefield he finds himself being nursed by darling of the ton, Lady Sarah Latymor – his commanding officer’s precious sister. He knows the right thing is to send her away, but Sarah is going to defy everyone in order to stay with him, even if she ruins herself in the process.

In A Rose For Major Flint, Major Adam Flint is Louise’s hero. He’s Randall’s illegitimate half-brother, he’s fought himself out of the gutter and become an officer – but he’s tough, rough and definitely not respectable. When he rescues the traumatised young woman he calls “Rose” on the battlefield he believes her to be a camp follower. But Rose is not what she seems and Flint’s hard-won honour is soon put to the test.

It was a challenge fitting the three stories into the framework of the historical facts, but that was also a strength, because it gave us so many wonderful situations to exploit – the Duchess of Richmond’s legendary ball, for one. It also led Louise into producing a non-fiction book about the first Waterloo tourists in their own words – they began appearing on the battlefield the morning afterwards and haven’t stopped visiting since! (The Road to Waterloo: The First Waterloo Tourists 1815-1816).

To reflect the timescale of the books we have been given three gorgeous covers. All show the little chateau of Hougoumont in the background. It was the key to the western end of the British front line and the covers show it intact before the battle, burning during it and in ruins afterwards.

We’d love to hear your comments about our series and to answer any questions you might have. We would also like to ask you a question – Just what is it about men in uniform that is so attractive? And which uniforms do you go for – the Roman legionary? The medieval knight? The British redcoat or the American GI, perhaps? It has been great having the opportunity to visit Risky Regencies and to celebrate we’re offering a mystery goody bag to the writer of one answer, chosen at random.

Sarah Mallory:
http://www.sarahmallory.com

Annie Burrows:
http://www.annie-burrows.co.uk

Louise Allen:
www.louiseallenregency@tiscali.co.uk
http://janeaustenslondon.com

Buy links

A Lady For Lord Randall:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0263247775/ & http://www.amazon.com/dp/0263247775/

A Mistress For Major Bartlett:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/026324783X/ &
http://www.amazon.com/dp/026324783X/

A Rose for Major Flint:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0263247899/ &
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0263247899/ &

The Road to Waterloo:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00VMQWN74/
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VMQWN74/

Posted in Giveaways, Guest, History | 33 Replies