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Author Archives: diane

About diane

Diane Gaston is the RITA award-winning author of Historical Romance for Harlequin Historical and Mills and Boon, with books that feature the darker side of the Regency. Formerly a mental health social worker, she is happiest now when deep in the psyches of soldiers, rakes and women who don’t always act like ladies.

More Silver Forks

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I’m still plodding my way through The Silver Fork Society: Fashionable Life and Literature from 1814 to 1840 by Alison Adburgham (Constable and Co, 1983) that I wrote about on June 4. Although I’m out of the strict Regency period, (it is around 1823 now) I have reached a chapter that describes country house parties. This seems perfect to mention, since Amanda has provided us with the country house in which we might all gather for a country house party.

What might we do with ourselves?

Imagine my surprise to discover we might be bored.

Adburgham quotes Thomas Creevy, writing to his step-daughter in 1823 from Lord Sefton’s Stoke Farm:
“My life here is a most agreeable one. I am much the earliest riser in the House, and have above two hours to dispose of before breakfast, which is at 11 o’clock or even later. Then I live with myself again till about 3, when the ladies and I ride for 3 hours or so…We dine at 1/4 past seven, and the critics would say not badly. We drink in great moderation — walk out, all of us, before tea, and then crack okes and fiddle till about 1/2 past 12 or 1. “

I guess it all depends on who we might fiddle with!

Mrs. Arbuthnot, in her journal in June, 1829, spoke of amateur theatricals at country house parties, which, of course, Jane Austen told us about in Mansfield Park. Mrs. Arbuthnot listed several participants at a house party at Lord Salisbury’s Hatfield. She said:
“They acted two plays and I really thought they played better than real actors. “

So I guess we might “put on a show.”

What are your plans to entertain yourselves this summer? I’m headed for a family reunion next weekend in Tennessee- my husband’s father’s side of the family. I’ll report in on it next Monday.

Image of Thomas Creevey is from http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRcreevey.htm
Image of theatrical is Arizona Theatre Company’s 2005 performance of Pride & Prejudice
Image of Melbury House is from Diane’s own collection!

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Waterloo, A Very Near Run Thing

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Bow your heads in honor of the 47,000 brave men who fought and perished June 18, 1815, 192 years ago today at the Battle of Waterloo: 15,000 British, Belgian, Dutch and German soldiers; 7,000 Prussians; 25,000 French. Inconceivable numbers of men lost in a battle that changed history.

When I first decided to write Regency historicals, I immersed myself in as much of the history as I could. My library had a nice collection of audiobooks, and I used to listen to them driving to and from work. One of those books was Waterloo: Day of Battle by David Howarth (published in Great Britain under the title A Near Run Thing: The Day of Waterloo, 1968).

Waterloo: Day of Battle tells the story of Waterloo through the eyes of the soldiers who fought in it, making it a very personal story, very real and emotional. Howarth says the individual soldier experienced the battle “half-blinded by gunsmoke, half-deadened by noise, and either half-paralyzed by fright or driven to a kind of madness by exaltation and the hope of glory.” It is a wonderful book, available used on sites like Allbookstores.com

There are some good online sites that tell of the battle:
Waterloo for the Uninitiated – June 18th 1815
Wikipedia
or more in depth
BritishBattles.com The Battle of Waterloo

From BritishBattles.com I’ll show some highlights of the battle memorialized in paintings. You can purchase some of these prints at Art.com

Early in the battle the British cavalry, including the Scots Greys shown here, charged the French, at first overwhelming the French, but intoxicated with their success, they advanced too far and did not hear or heed the bugles to retreat. French Cavalry, fresh in the battle, soon cut them off. The regiments were almost completely destroyed.


On the western side of the Allied line was the chateau and farm of Hougoumont, 3,500 men were charged with the defense of Hougoumont to protect the Allied forces from being outflanked by the French. Hougoumont was one part of the battlefield that Napoleon could see clearly and perhaps it is for that reason he poured many French resources in attempting to take it, unsuccessfully.

French General Ney ordered his cavalry to attack what he thought were retreating Allied troops, but he found instead solid British squares, and though his cavalry attacked again and again, the squares held. The movie Waterloo , starring Rod Steiger as Napoleon; Christopher Plummer as Wellington, shows an wonderful aerial recreation of this cavalry attack.


In spite of the brave, heroic, and stubborn British forces, the day might have gone to Napoleon had not the Prussians under General Blücher arrived in time.

After the battle, two square miles were covered with those 47,000 dead and dying, their shrieks and cries could be heard throughout the night as more horror assaulted them. Looters, primarily from the British and Prussian armies plundered the dead and killed the dying for their loot.

Throughout Howarth’s Waterloo: Day of Battle, he weaves a love story. Colonel Sir William De Lancey, on Wellington’s staff, had married Magdalene Hall three months earlier and she had followed him to Belgium. When word came to her that he was wounded, she searched for him and found him in a cottage near Mont St, Jean, no more than a hovel. She stayed by his side, nursing him for eleven days. At his request she lay next to him one night. The next day he died in her arms.

Read more about Lady de Lancey in Lady de Lancey at Waterloo by David Miller.

What are your favorite Waterloo books or websites?

There are some terrific fictional accounts of Waterloo, as well. What are your favorites?

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Travel Guides for the Imagination

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Are you planning your summer vacation yet? I may not get much farther than Jellico, Tennessee, for a family reunion or Dallas for the RWA conference, but, thanks to Emily Hendrickson from whom I purchased a fortune of books-literally and figuratively-I have travel guides for the imagination!

My travel destination of choice will always be England, but, alas, not this year. So I’ll content myself with a peek into A Portrait of Georgian London by Fiona St. Aubyn. This book is compiled from The Microcosm of London (1810) and contains illustrations by Augustus Pugin and Thomas Rowlandson. It was also my most expensive book purchase, but worth every penny because I can really see what these sites in London looked like in the early 1800s. A real treat, however, is looking at the illustration of St. Martins in the Field and seeing that it looked much the same as when Amanda and Julie and I sat in the pew for a concert in 2003. Same with Westminster Abbey!

In my 2005 trip to the UK we traveled a bit into the Lake District, but not nearly deep enough to see what Wordsworth described as “the majesty of the mountains.” I’ll have to content myself with a tour through this book, The Illustrated Wordsworth’s Guide to the Lakes, edited by Peter Bicknell. It is full of prints of paintings by period artists of the beauty of the Lake District, and photographs that show that the beauty remains just as it had been then. And, of course, there are Wordsworth’s descriptions as well.

My friend Melissa James (Her Outback Knight, July 2008) is presently in Switzerland, far from her Australian home, but she is not so different than the “200 years of English travellers” who visited the tiny country. When I read about Maria Edgeworth in my copy of Southwards to Geneva: 200 years of English Travellers by Mavis Coulson, I’ll be thinking of Melissa and pining to see majestic mountains in Switzerland as well.

Do you have any Vacations-of-the-Imagination planned? How about real vacations? Can any of us beat Kalen’s trip to Morocco?
Think of me in Jellico!

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Books, Blessington, and Butler

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I recently purchased a bounty of books from the wonderful Emily Hendrickson who is selling off some of her collection of research books. I have purchased MANY of them (Kalen, how many have you purchased?) and I refuse to tell you, my husband, or anybody how much I’ve spent! That’s between me and the IRS.

Of of the treasures I purchased is The Silver Fork Society: Fashionable Life and Literature from 1814 to 1840 by Alison Adburgham (Constable and Co, 1983). The term Silver Fork Society was given to the literature in the Regency that emphasized the glitter, elegance, and frivolity of the aristocratic classes. Like Lady Caroline Lamb’s Glenarvon, they were often written by those belonging to that society or on its fringes.

Another of the Silver Fork novelists was Marguerite, Countess of Blessington. What fascinated me about Marguerite was that her own life read like a novel. She was born the daughter of a drunken Irish squireen who sold her in marriage at age fifteen to a Captain Farmer, a violent and abusive man from whom she managed to escape after a few years. She returned to her parents, who did not want her, and accepted the “protection” of a Captain Jenkins, who took her home to live with his wife and sister. She blossomed both in beauty and in education in Jenkins’ home and it was there that she met an Irish earl, Lord Blessington. Blessington paid Jenkins ten thousand pounds to compensate for the years of care of Marguerite and he set about marrying her. Luckily, no divorce needed to be arranged from the abusive Capt. Farmer. He, drunk, fell to his death from a window in King’s Bench prison. Marguerite became the Countess of Blessington and, although she was never accepted by the highest rungs of society, she and her husband lived an extravagant lifestyle surrounded by the leading men in literary and political circles. They embarked on a grand tour during which Marguerite was befriended by Byron. After her husband’s death, Marguerite turned to writing in order to make money. She wrote a memoir of Byron, Conversations with Lord Byron, and a novel, The Repealers, and she edited annuals, such as The Book of Beauty and The Keepsake.

In our novels, we would probably make certain there was a happily ever after and Marguerite’s life was not quite so easy, but I thought it was interesting that a real-life woman of the Regency could rise so far above her scandalous youth.

Last night I watched the MTV Movie Awards, a show I would normally skip, but the movie 300 was up for Best Movie, Best Performance (Gerard Butler), Best Breakthrough Performance (Lena Heady) and Best Fight scene (Gerard Butler). Johnny Depp and Pirates of the Caribbean won best movie and best performance, but Gerry won for Best Fight Scene! Way to go Gerry!!

Did you know the story of Lady Blessington? (I didn’t)
Do you know any other real life Regency heroines whose lives are like a novel?
And did you see Gerry win his MTV award??

Photo of Lady Blessington from Wikipedia
Photo of Gerry from Gerard Butler Gals.

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