As always, I thank you for reading!
First, I want to state that the Captain Lacey series will indeed continue. I have many more ideas for mysteries for Lacey to solve, places for him to visit, and aspects of the Regency world to explore. I try to write at least one of these books a year, no matter how many other series I have going. I’m also trying to write more mysteries in general.
Every book in the series has a historical detail or two upon which the story hangs. For Murder in St. Giles, I learned much about pugilism and prisons in the Regency period. What we think of as England’s dark and foggy prisons (e.g., Dartmoor), are Victorian, not Regency. Before the abolition of transportation in the 1850s, a convicted felon of a capital crime in Regency England usually had one of two sentences—hanging or transportation. Existing prisons, such as Coldbath Fields and Milbank, as well as the hulks, served as detention centers where the prisoner waited before he or she was transported. Incarceration as a sentence did not occur until after the Regency period, when prisons were refurbished and monotonous forms of punishment, such as the treadwheel, were introduced.
Dartmoor and the hulks had been used for prisoners of war during the Napoleonic wars, but once those prisoners were released, Dartmoor was left to go derelict, and the hulks were used again, as Seaman Jones tells Lacey, “for our own villains.” Conditions, as Lacey discovers, were deplorable.
In the Regency period, most convicts could expect to be sent to New South Wales or to Van Diemen’s Land (known as Tasmania by mid-century). There they would do manual labor in work gangs or for colonists until their sentence was up. Most of those released from Van Diemen’s Land settled themselves in the colonies that were beginning to burgeon in mainland Australia.
The penalty for returning to Britain from transportation before the sentence was over was death.
I also delved into the fascinating world of pugilism. I learned about Daniel Mendoza, who made himself champion in the late eighteenth century with an unusual boxing style of bending slightly and holding his fists to defend his face. Mendoza was a middleweight but took the heavyweight championship. John Jackson, who went on to open the boxing salon in Bond Street, became famous for beating the great Mendoza by seizing Mendoza by his long hair and raining many blows upon him.
Regency-style pugilism was bare-knuckle boxing at its most raw—the “Queensberry rules” and boxing gloves were years in the future. Men of all classes learned the art of pugilism, but one did not cross class—aristocrats fought others in the haut ton, and men of Brewster’s class fought only those of their own strata.
A genteel match ended when one boxer’s knee or hand touched the ground. An unsanctioned street match might end in the death of one of the fighters. Eye gouging, biting, grappling, and pinning were legal. In many ways, Regency-style pugilism more resembles MMA than the modern boxing it became.
I had the great fortune of taking a class with a bare-knuckle fighter who boxes in the Regency pugilist style. I learned much observing and attempting the many moves, and watching my husband spar valiantly, despite nursing a broken knee. But so might a pugilist have done in Lacey’s time.
I hope you enjoyed this adventure—I am amazed we have reached book thirteen!
As always I want to thank readers for encouraging me to continue with Captain Lacey and helping make this series of my heart a bestseller.
If wish to sign up for my email blasts, which I send out when new books are on pre-order or releasing, or to let you know when audio books are available, you can do so at eepurl.com/5n7rz . (Privacy policy: I never collect any more information than an email address, and I never sell or give data to any third party. You may unsubscribe or update your information at any time.)
Thank you again!
Best wishes,
Ashley Gardner