Introduction to the Regency World and Why We’re Here
“Mad, bad, and dangerous to know.”1
Caroline Lamb claimed credit for those words, the most famous description of Lord George Byron, poet and all-around bad boy of early-nineteenth-century England.
She might as well have been describing herself. Caroline was equally as dramatic, talented, capricious, and fascinating as Byron. And just like Byron, she was a published author.
But Byron is remembered as a great writer of the era, while Caroline’s writing has become a footnote, and she is relegated to the role of hysterical ex-girlfriend in Byron’s story.
To many the Regency is a period of great men. Castlereagh, Palmerston, Pitt, Nelson, Wellington dominate the histories of the era; their names writ large across the historical stage.
But it is also an era of great women. Forcing their way into a historical record set up to extol the many accomplishments of men in so many surprising places that we are forced to take notice.
Each woman shines bright, illuminating those around her. Each woman connects to so many more.
Each has her own story. Her own accomplishments and disappointments. Her own love stories and losses.
The sad truth of history is that so many of these stories are lost. And the stories of people of color and women are disproportionately so.
The happy truth is that we’re still rediscovering stories every day. History is more alive than ever as we turn our attention to those who have been left to languish in the shadows and those who have been cast in a singular light.
Here we have an opportunity to examine these networks of women spreading through an iconic time period: the Regency.
So named for the ten-year period between 1810 and 1820 when then Prince of Wales George IV became Regent after his father, George III, showed increasing signs of mental instability, “the Regency” has long reigned supreme in the beloved world of historical romances. These romance novels have helped the Regency become what it is—and all that it means—today.
There has long been a misperception that Regency romance heroines are simpering misses who fall fast for a rake and think of nothing but love and, more crudely, sex. In actuality, contemporary romance novelists have always plumbed the depths of Regency history to find inspiration for heroines who break the mold, in more ways than one.
Lady Caroline Lamb is a perfect example of one such Regency woman, one who lived the type of life that could inspire a slew of romance novels. Her love life was certainly dramatic enough. But there is another layer to the story, a twin narrative that follows the more famous love affair and that peeks out at us in letters, diaries, and poems.
It’s the network of women in Caroline’s life who loved her and she loved back. And the women she sparred with in person and letters, those she tried desperately to befriend and those she scorned. Mother, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, cousins, friends, enemies, and in-laws: They appear in every facet of Caroline’s life, guiding and worrying over her, cajoling and encouraging, censorious and generous, or in turn demanding and threatening as they tried to force Caroline to live as they wanted her to. It is an altogether familiar world for modern women—one that the women in our lives create through their very presence. Caroline lived in a world of women, even if she is historically associated with famous men.
There is such joy and strength in female friendship, and it is that joy that we can see in every facet of women’s lives during the Regency—and similarly that joy and connection that are all too frequently left out of the greater historical narrative.
It is touching to see echoes of that care and closeness we crave today in historical sources, like the famous Duchess of Devonshire’s sweet poem to her niece, the eventual Lady Caroline Lamb, née Ponsonby.
TO LADY CAROLINE PONSONBY WITH A NEW YEAR’S GIFT OF A PENCIL:
Fairy, sprite, whatever thou art
Magic genius waits on thee
And thou claimst each willing heart
Whilst thy airy form we see
Take the gift, the early year
Shall for thee in Splendor shine.
Genius gives it. Do not fear
Boldly mould, invent, design.2
Georgiana and Caroline are both famous for their scandalous love lives and social antics. But in this poem all that melts away, and we see something far more intimate and honest. It echoes through time, reminding each new generation of the gift that can come when someone sees you and believes in you. And it reminds us of the humanity that we sometimes forget in the greater historical narrative.
The bittersweet nature of these relationships can also be seen in Caroline’s constant push-and-pull with her in-laws and friends who turned critics as her antics came right up to the edge, and eventually over it, of socially acceptable.
Caroline has been called shameless and hysterical for her refusal to go quietly into the night when Byron was done with her. In actuality, her struggle to wrest control of her story from all those who would misrepresent her is familiar to the women of the twenty-first century. In her rejection of social norms and polite society we see glimmers of Elizabeth Warren’s famous “Nevertheless, she persisted” attitude.
And like our heroines of the twenty-first century, Caroline was a complicated woman who made mistakes. In that, she had many contemporary examples, including her own aunt, Georgiana.
The famous Duchess of Devonshire died in 1806, before her friend George IV officially became Prince Regent. But Georgiana’s fingerprints can be seen all over the Regency. She was a friend and, more important, patron of any number of the women in this book. Indeed, the famous portrait commemorating her friendship with Anne Damer and Elizabeth, Lady Melbourne, stares at us from the pages of this book.
Elizabeth, Lady Melbourne, was also Lady Caroline Lamb’s mother-in-law.
Connections everywhere, binding disparate women into remarkable networks.
In choosing the women to feature in this book I was faced with an interesting dilemma in considering who was truly a heroine of the Regency and what that meant. I have focused on women who contributed to the culture of a time period, which means, necessarily, that there are women featured who were prominent before and after this ten-year period. I would argue, strongly, that if we discount those who come immediately before and after, we lose something essential in our understanding of women at this time.
Indeed, we lose the very essence of what is so remarkable about the women of the nineteenth century—the connections they created through friendship, family, talent, and intellect, and the way they fostered their own ambitions and those of other women through careful patronage and targeted support.
The Regency era of our imagination isn’t simply ten years. It’s actually a much broader period, blending with the Georgian and Victorian on either end. And the truth is that there are hundreds of women who could be included in these pages.
I’m often asked why the Regency is so perennially popular. What exactly about this tiny time period grabs and holds our attention?
I would argue that one part of the fascination is in the struggle of a society seemingly ruled by a strict social code while in actuality the most famous and celebrated of the time are those who flouted those rules.
And no one more so than the women in this book. They lived life on their own terms and made the rules bend to accommodate them. They built careers in the most improbable places and demanded respect for their accomplishments.
The real heroines of the Regency aren’t empty-headed heiresses or scheming mamas—they’re intelligent, talented artists, thinkers, scientists, and so much more.