Today is Memorial Day, the day set aside by the US after the Civil War to honor military personnel who have lost their lives in service to their country. Memorial Day is particularly poignant for Americans this year, with so many of our soldiers making the ultimate sacrifice.

As the daughter of an Army officer, I have a particular regard for soldiers. Some of the heroes of my books are soldiers, and in all my books the war with Napoleon is mentioned. I love my Regency soldiers. I secretly yearn to write some Napoleonic war romances, sort of like Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series, except love stories. I own a brazillion books on the Napoleonic war and its soldiers. It seemed fitting today to tell you about one of them: Intelligence Officer in the Peninsula Letters and Diaries of Major The Honorable Edward Charles Cocks 1786-1812, Julia V. Page, editor (1986, Spellmount Ltd)

Major Cocks served in various capacities in the Peninsular war. He was attached to the regular Spanish army for a time and also with the 16th Light Dragoons. He worked as an intelligence officer behind enemy lines, performed special missions for Wellington, and was a field officer commanding soldiers. His family wanted him in Parliament, but Charles, as he was called, loved soldiering more than anything else. He was the consummate professional soldier, very much in his element in the war in Spain.

In a letter to his uncle, Charles wrote:

Few regard soldiers in their true light, that is as a body of men giving up many individual pleasures and comforts for a general national advantage, coupled certainly with the hope of personal fame and at the same time preserving more individual independence than any class of men….Men unused to war and ignorant of its ways regard slodiers as pernicious characters because they always figure them as intent on the desruction of their enemy, but a soldier only meets his foe now and then and he is every day engaged in reciprocal offices of kindness with his comrades….for my part I think there is much less ferocity in putting your foe to death when you see him aiming at your life, than in coolly rejoicing in your cabinet at home at successes purchased by the blood of thousands–Your dutiful and affectionate nephew, E. Charles Cocks

On October 8, 1812, Charles was acting as a field officer in the seige of Burgos. In the hours before dawn he led his men up a slope to regain the outer wall. When he reached the top, a French soldier fired straight at him. The ball passed through his chest, piercing the artery above his heart. He died instantly.

That morning Wellington strode into Ponsonby’s office, paced to and fro without speaking for several minutes. He started back toward the door, saying only, “Cocks is dead” before he walked out. Later Wellington wrote, “He (Cocks) is on every ground the greatest loss we have yet sustained.” When Wellington stood at his graveside, ashen-faced and remote, none of his officers dared speak to him.

Admiration for valor, gratitude for sacrifice, grief at loss. Today is not very different than 1812.

My father, Daniel J. Gaston, pictured here circa 1940s, was not called upon to make a soldier’s ultimate sacrifice. He reached an advanced age, long enough to see his daughters well-situated and happy, and his grandchildren grown. He died peacefully in 2001 before my writing career took off.

Do you have a soldier, real or fictional, who deserves tribute?

Would you like more war romances?

Can you think of any Napoleonic war romances (Heyer’s An Infamous Army comes to mind and one of Mary Jo Putney’s, featuring a blood transfusion–title fails me)?

To all our soldiers……Thanks
Diane

Since Amanda already disclosed our obsession with Dancing with the Stars (final competition tonight!) and Project Runway, Top Chef, Top Design, Shear Genius, etc etc, I thought I might update you on Bullrun.
Remember our interview with romance cover model Richard Cerqueira? He announced that he and his brother were competing in the reality TV show, Bullrun, a cross country road competition on Spike TV.

I watched every episode of the competition and it had much of the drama and excitement of those other reality TV shows mentioned above. There were petty rivalries, close calls, major obstacles to overcome. The personalities of the competitors were, of course, a major component of the show’s drama.

I’m pleased to announce that Richard and his brother came in second in the competition! They didn’t win the prize money, but they put forth a great effort, coming from behind, barely making the cut in the first weeks of the show. I was disappointed that they did not get more air time and mystified why the show’s producers thought that the mostly bleeped out dialogue of the other teams were more screen worthy. Team Cerqueira did not swear nearly as much as the others and they pretty much reached their position by using their own resources. Other teams made alliances in the early weeks, seeking to better their chances of winnng over other teams, but the Cerqueiras made it on their own. They came in second even with a major setback of having to use 2 hours to get their brakes repaired. I was really glad they made it to the top two teams.

Spike TV is not my cable channel of choice. I do watch a lot of the shows on the Style Network, like How Do I Look?, Fashion Police, The Look for Less. These shows all involve style makeovers of one sort or another. My very favorite makeover show is What Not to Wear, both the British version and the American one.

I’m also fond of reality shows such as Clean House and Clean Sweep (which I can’t find anymore!). These two shows basically go into a cluttered person’s home, clear out their cluttered room, sell the junk at a yard sale and redecorate the space into a neat, organized, pretty room. It is the stuff dreams are made of…come clean MY house and make it beautiful!! It is the turmoil the characters go through to give up their beloved but junky items in order to have a functional room that intrigues me.

I also love the drama of selling houses and so watch the HGTV channel and its House Hunters, Sell this House, and Designed to Sell.

Lately I’ve also been watching reruns of The Biggest Loser.

How this all fits in to writing risky regencies, I’m not so sure. I am certain some of my other Riskies are slack jawed with shock at my level of entertainment…..

But I know Amanda shares this folly. Keira, our Risky frequent poster is also with us….although maybe even they have not slid this deep into the mire….

(What reality tv shows are YOUR secret pleasure…mmmmm? And did anyone else watch Bullrun?)

I’m reading one of my new research acquisitions, In the Family Way: Childbearing in the British Aristocracy, 1760 – 1860 by Judith Schnied Lewis, Rutgers U Press, 1986. (Do you have THIS one, Kalen???).

My heroine is going to have a pregnancy and birth in my new work-in-progress, so purchasing this book was a necessity! It promises to be interesting reading.

In the first pages (as far as I’ve gotten), Lewis makes the case for changing social values from 1760 to 1860, from the good of the group to the personal wishes of the individual. Her population of study is the British aristocracy and in addressing this issue, she says:

Whether family members chose to address each other by name or title is not only a sign of their perceived intimacy, it is also a clue to whether they see that relationship as predominantly a public or private one. It is thus one good index for tracing the role of domesticity.

Lewis talks about an evolution of the more formal modes of address before 1800 to more informal terms of address in the mid-1800s. So in 1780s, she says, Lady Stafford referred to her husband as Lord Stafford (and vice versa) and Lady Sarah Napier always wrote of her husband as Col. Napier. (I always think about the Bennetts in Pride and Prejudice calling each other Mr. and Mrs.). As time goes on, Lewis states that informal address, given names or nicknames, tend to appear–the Duchess of Bedford calling her husband Johnny, for example; the Earl of Scarborough referring to his wife, the Countess Fredericka as “dear Freddy.”

Lewis makes the point that: This switch to informal and even casual modes of address is significant in two ways. First, it clearly indicates that the individual takes precedence over the rank that he or she holds…Second, this verbal transformation identified varying levels of intimacy among people.

Gee. Another example of the Regency, occurring smack dab in the middle of this period, being a time of transition. Something more to think about – the clash of the needs of the group/family vs the needs of the individual; the changing nature of terms of address. This isn’t any surprise, really, but it is interesting to read about it in the context of how members of the aristocracy address each other.

Names are such a confusing area of writing Regengies. Just getting titles right is a daunting task, and presenting the variety of names one person holds and making it make sense to the reader is a challenge. I have a particular problem in this current wip. My hero is a minor character in Innocence and Impropriety and in the January 2008 book, The Vanishing Viscountess. He’s called “Pomroy” or “Pom” by his friend, Tanner (whose given name is Adam Vickery and whose title name is Tannerton). My editor said “Pom” is a derogatory term. The dictionary defines it as: n. – A disparaging term for English immigrants to Australia or New Zealand. Who knew?

So my hero can’t be Pom. To solve this dilemma I came up with a great uncle who conveniently has died so Pom’s father inherits a new title, Earl of Varney (or is it Varcourt?), thereby giving Pom his lesser title as a courtesy, making Pom Viscount Cavanley. I am trying to incorporate this convolution in the plot so it will mean something and not merely make readers eyes glaze over.

And I’m having Pom and the heroine using first names. Pom’s first name is Adrian, which could be a female name, but I liked it and enough is enough already!

At least Lewis’s book has made me feel that this first name basis made historic sense. It is always my modern, American inclination to make all my Regency characters use first names, but that is something that doesn’t fit the history, so I tend to swing to the other extreme of confusing accuracy.

Am I obsessing about this unnecessarily? Does anybody care if Regency names or titles are used correctly or not?

Cheers!
Diane

*Excellent website for getting titles correct: http://chinet.com/~laura/html/titles01.html