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Category: Research

Posts in which we talk about research

More Bath Pics

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Here are some more of my photos of Bath taken during my recent trip. I love just wandering around Bath, looking at everything, and taking pictures.

Of course, as Jane Austen pointed out, it does rain a lot in Bath. (Then again, it rains a lot everywhere in England. I have always thought it a bit odd that Austen seemed to believe it rained more in Bath than anywhere else. I suppose her general unhappiness in Bath may have something to do with it. Or perhaps it just happened to rain more when she was there? Or perhaps when she was indoors at Bath, she could hear the rain on the pavements much more than she could hear the rain in the countryside.)

As I was going to say, I just walk around Bath, wait for a break in the rain if it’s rainy, and wait for a break in the cars. Then I wait longer, hoping for a break in both at the same time. Or for blue sky. But in spite of all these difficulties, I’ve gotten a lot of lovely Bath pictures over the years! Here’s a “chair” — carriages weren’t very suitable for Bath’s hilly roads, so you would take a chair (carried by chairmen) up and down the hills, to the Baths, to the Pump Room, to the Assembly Rooms, etc. The fares were set and published, so the chairmen couldn’t cheat you!

Here we have the interior of the Pump Room. Just lovely. Here Catherine Morland strolled arm in arm with Isabella Thorpe. And of course, to be truly healthy, one would drink the mineral water here. (Nowadays one can have a cream tea instead. Much less healthful, I fear, but much more enjoyable.)

Here’s the outside of the Pump Room — the area here was known as the Pump Room Yard. It’s bordered by the Abbey Church (quite lovely, and much restored since the Regency, when it wasn’t nearly as nice as it is now) and right in the middle of everything — now nearly as much as it was two hundred years ago — at least for visitors to Bath!

And how could I forget a picture of Pulteney Bridge, surely one of the prettiest sights in Bath? A bird happened to fly through the picture as I was taking it — you may be able to make him out if you look closely.

Ah, Bath. What would Mr. Tilney ever do without you? You supply him such a variety of people to make witty remarks about. And you supply Mrs. Allen with a wonderful choice of fabrics. And Catherine Morland with more books than she could imagine.

Ah, Bath!

Cara

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India – Pre-Regency

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I’ve been enjoying my research into India during the Regency for Wolfe’s story (Wolfe of the Ternion in The Marriage Bargain). The story will begin in India, assuming Warner’s approval of my next idea, but will mostly take place in England.

I’ve discovered some interesting things about the English in India. In the early years of the East India Company it was not uncommon for the English company men to adopt a native lifestyle, native dress, taking Indian wives. Such men were tolerated in the early years and not much was made about them, but later, closer to our time period, adopting native habits was beginning to be frowned upon or looked upon with suspicion. Typically, by the Victorian age, it was not tolerated at all, given the certain belief that the British were superior in all ways.


I’m reading White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth Century India by William Dalrymple, which tells the story of James Achilles Kirkpatrick, a Colonel and an Ambassador, who married Khairunnissa, the daughter of an Indian noble family. Kirkpatrick converted to Islam to marry her and—according to a web article—spied for the Nizam against the British. The marriage was a happy but brief one, lasting only four years. The couple produced two children who were sent to England. Shortly after, Kirkpatrick unexpectedly died. It was 1805. Their mother never saw them again. She was soon seduced by Kirkpatrick’s assistant and kept as his mistress until she died a few years later at age 27.

At the time of Kirkpatrick’s marriage, one of the British who expressed concern over Kirkpatrick’s allegiance to Britain was Colonel Arthur Wellesley, in India after vanquishing the Tipu Sultan.

In the book Original Letters from India by Eliza Fay there are interesting details about life in India, but also a great amount of detail about her travel to India. Across the Suez, her caravan was attacked. And later, finally in India, the ship was boarded by the local Indian governor’s soldiers and Eliza, her husband, and the other passengers and crew were taken prisoner. She hid their watches and other small treasures in her hair.

Cheers,
Diane

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Lavenham, Suffolk

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As you might have guessed, I have figured out how to upload pictures from my new digital camera to the computer. Here are some pics from my recent trip to England — houses in Lavenham, Suffolk. I love the colors!!! I’ve never been a fan of the greenish-brown brick that so many English houses have, so I just adore all the colors in Suffolk.

And then the half timbering — there’s SO much in Lavenham that it’s amazing. It’s really like going back in time — except for all the cars, of course. 🙂 Though to be correct, I should mention that during my trip in Lavenham I learned that “half-timbered” is not the general term for these buildings — actually, “half-timbered” refers to the buildings in which the timbers are so wide that half of each wall is wood. (So most of the buildings people refer to as “half-timbered” aren’t. Perhaps they’re quarter-timbered? 32 percent timbered? 0.2119 timbered?)

Ahem. Sorry about that.

During the Middle Ages, Lavenham was a prosperous wool town. The wealthy merchants built these houses to live in — these were prestigious homes back then, and those with the most wood were the most admired. Even Queen Elizabeth visited Lavenham in 1578, bringing her whole court. (Wouldn’t that be nice, having folks like that drop in on you, expecting you to feed them all at your own great expense?)

By the end of the century, though, the wool trade in Lavenham started to decline (perhaps Elizabeth’s court ate too much?) Eventually, Lavenham turned into a quiet little byway, no longer important in the economy of the nation, or even the county. This meant that instead of tearing down all these beautiful timbered buildings to put up factories and more modern dwellings, most folks didn’t have the money for serious improvements or modernizations — so Lavenham is almost untouched. There are over three hundred buildings in Lavenham which have been listed as being of historical or architectural significance.

So: which of these would you want to be your house, or your Regency heroine’s house? (During the Georgian period, many of these houses were covered with brick — but our heroines, of course, can live in pink houses if we want.)

Pink, orange, red, yellow, beige, white — what color would you paint your house? Would you have white-ish timbers, as in the bottom photo here (which is apparently how they originally did them), or would you paint or stain them black or brown? Or would Lavenham just be too colorful a town for you?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Cara
Cara King — www.caraking.com
MY LADY GAMESTER — Booksellers’ Best Finalist for Best Regency of 2005!

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A Brief History of Soccer

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Today’s post is in honor of tomorrow’s final of the 2006 World Cup! Now, I confess I’m not very “sporty”–I never could get into baseball, football, or basketball. But there ARE sports I enjoy, like tennis and ice skating, and, especially, soccer. This is not an easy sport to be a fan of in the US (unlike the rest of the world!), and I have only been able to catch a few games of the World Cup, thanks to kind friends with satellite TV. But tomorrow’s final is actually on network television, yay! France vs. Italy, or the hunky Zinedine Zidane (who I have a bit of a crush on) vs. the hunky Fabio Cannarvo. Who to cheer for???

So, I did a little looking into the history of soccer/football, and here are just a few of the factoids I discovered:

–A game involving kicking a ball into a net is known to have been around as early as the Han Dynasty in China (2nd or 3rd century BC); they also played a similar game in Kyoto, Japan around 611 AD
–The Greeks and Romans were also ardent footballers. In Rome in the early Olympics, there were up to 27 players on a team, and 2/3rds of them had to seek medical attention after a 50-minute game
–In Britain (today probably the epicenter of foottball!) in the 8th century, the tale of the first game in England involves the severed head of a defeated Danish prince
–In 1331, Edward III passed laws banning football (booo!)
–James I of Scotland in 1424 proclaimed “That na man play at the Fute-ball” (boooo to him, too!)
–Elizabeth I declared that soccer players should be “jailed for a week and obliged to do penance in church” ( would really really like to know what was going on in those Elizabethan matches)
–In 1815, Eton established a set of rules for the game that other schools and universities soon began to use. These were later standardised and a version known as the Cambridge Rules were adopted in 1848
–There soon sprang up two camps: the Rugby School, with rules allowing tripping, shin-kicking, and carrying the ball vs. the Cambridge Rules boys. On October 26, 1863, 11 clubs and schools sent representatives to a meeting at the Freemason’s Tavern to establish a single set of rules to which everyone could agree. (This created the Football Association). But, predictably, the Rugby School advocates walked out (no doubt after kicking some shins), and on December 8 the Football Association and Rugby Football split.
–In 1869, the provision to forbid any handling of the ball was passed, and the soccer/football we know now came into being

So, best of luck to all the players tomorrow! Vive la France, or Viva Italia. Whichever. 🙂

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“Roughing it”

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Last week, during flooding in my local area, I ended up living several days essentially on an island. I live up on a hill, but the main road at the bottom of the neighborhood was closed, the power was out a conserve-and-boil-water order was in effect. My children and I talked about earlier days when no one had electricity, TV, etc… I toyed with the notion of whether this was giving me a taste of Regency life, but quickly rejected it.

As we figured out ways to cook everything on a barbecue grill, I realized that in the Regency we would have had a wood, or more likely, coal-burning stove of some sort, as pictured here (the kitchen at Pickford’s House, Friar Gate, Derby, built after 1812). More importantly, I (or more likely, my cook-let’s keep it a proper Regency fantasy) would know how to use it. Instead of worrying about the food in the fridge and freezer spoiling, we’d have cellars or get fresh stuff from the home farm or local market.

As far as personal hygiene was concerned, in my Regency fantasy I’d have a nice avante-garde bathroom such as the ‘bamboo bathroom’ at Plas Tag in Wales. The bath includes a shower with its own coal-fired water supply. Of course, I’d also have the means and the servants to bathe daily, as Beau Brummell is supposed to have done.

Inconveniences aside, the most striking thing was the feeling of isolation. We had only the radio to keep us advised as to the situation. Up on out hill everything was almost surreally normal–kids played outside, I did some gardening, lots of people were out grilling. It was just very quiet with no one driving in and out. Without the visual images on TV or a storm of Internet news, it was hard to grasp the extent of the devastation in lower areas. As it turns out, we were very lucky compared to some. Fortunately, there were very few fatalities in our area, but many people’s houses and businesses have sustained serious damage.

Anyway, after a few days of isolation, we learned that a somewhat roundabout, country road way of getting out of our neighborhood had opened up. We were expecting houseguests coming from Chicago, but they called, telling us the western routes to our town were still closed, so we arranged to meet them further to the north. We ending up “roughing it” together in a Fairfield Inn, conveniently located close to a children’s museum, a zoo, restaurants and boasting a pool. What I enjoyed the most, though, were the hot showers and hot coffee each morning. The best thing was getting home to find the power back on ahead of NYSEG predictions, our pet fish still alive and only moderately unpleasant smells from the fridge.

So I’ll admit it. I’m a wimp, I like my modern comforts and my Regency fantasy has to include all the most up-to-date conveniences of the time. And many, many servants. 🙂

Hope all my Risky friends and guests are safe and reasonably dry!

Elena
LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, Golden Quill Best Historical Romance
www.elenagreene.com

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