Change of Names
Readers who have read Lord Fenmore’s Wager, the prequel to A Marchioness Below Stairs, will notice a couple of name changes in this book. I decided to change the title Lady Uxbridge to Lady Axbridge after I discovered there was an Earl of Uxbridge during the Regency period. In my research for A Marchioness Below Stairs, I also discovered an Irish nobleman in the 18th Century known as the Earl of Kildare (between 1744 and 1761) and as the Marquess of Kildare (between 1761 and 1766), and so I changed the name of Lady Kildare in Lord Fenmore’s Wager to Lady Kildaren in A Marchioness Below Stairs, to avoid confusion with real people who bore those names at that time.
The Gentry vs the Aristocracy / Class divides
In A Marchioness Below Stairs, Isabel is a member of the gentry, with no aristocratic family connections. I fashioned her family’s societal position on the level of society that Jane Austen belonged to – the gentry, a broad social class that included those who owned land (the landed gentry) as well as the professional classes who did not (lawyers, doctors and clergy). Isabel’s father was a country squire – and although the family were genteel, they were not members of the nobility. Usually members of the aristocracy would marry other members of the aristocracy, and it was unusual for a Marquess to marry the daughter of a country squire – unusual, but not unheard of.
Source:
https://www.college.columbia.edu/core/node/1765
The Gunning Sisters
During the Georgian period, two beautiful sisters, Maria and Elizabeth Gunning, became stunning social successes and married into some of the most aristocratic families in the land. They had humble origins, but their wit and beauty captured the public’s attention. They were mobbed when they promenaded in the park, and spectators stood on chairs when they were presented at Court. Elizabeth married the Duke of Hamilton, and when he died, she married the Marquess of Lorne who later became the Duke of Argyll. Maria Gunning married the Earl of Coventry.
Source:
http://historytimeshistory.blogspot.com/2011/10/gunning-sisters-georgian-cinderella.html
Would a member of the gentry know how to cook?
It is known from their letters that the Austen ladies kept a cook when they lived at Chawton. However, this wasn’t the kind of cook who could prepare food for dinner parties. Based on the yearly allowance paid to their cook, it is believed the Austen’s cook would have prepared more of the basic fare for the ladies, and that the sisters spent time in the kitchen, supervising the work as well as preparing some of the food themselves.
Source:
Regency Dinner Party Etiquette
Dinner parties during the Regency were often extravagant affairs, with several dishes being served with each course. The hostess served the soup, while the host served the fish and carved all the meat joints. The first course included a number of dishes, which were all served at the same time.
At the end of each course, the dishes and first tablecloth were removed, and a fresh tablecloth, which was underneath, would be reset for the next course.
Each gentleman would serve himself and his neighbours from the dishes within his reach. If a dish was required from another part of the table, a man-servant would be sent to fetch it. It was not considered good manners to ask a neighbour to pass a dish. It was equally poor form for a lady to ask for wine. The nearest gentlemen would fulfil that task.
After the roasts of meat had been carved, the gentlemen would propose toasts.
During dinner, a gentleman was expected to engage the ladies nearest to him in conversation. It was not considered polite to talk behind one guest’s back to another, and it was not done to shout down the table.
During the first course, the conversation would flow to the hostess’s left, and when the second course was set, the hostess would turn to the guest on her right, thus “turning the table” and conversation would flow in that direction.
Source:
http://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.com/2013/05/mind-your-manners.html
The Ballad of Lord Bateman
The folk song Lord Bateman in A Marchioness Below Stairs was a real ballad, also known as Lord Beichan. It is known in the Southern Appalachians, with only slight variations in the lyrics, as The Turkish Lady. The earliest printed version appeared in Jamieson’s Popular Ballads in 1783, however, a broadside of Lord Bateman was registered in England on December 14, 1624 with the Stationers’ Company.
There is an ancient legend of St. Thomas Becket’s father, Gilbert Becket, that suggests the story of the tune.
Source:
http://www.contemplator.com/child/bateman.html
The Role of Women in the Abolition of the Slave Trade
On 25 March 1807 the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act received royal assent, abolishing the slave trade in the British colonies and making it illegal to carry enslaved people in British ships. However, it was only in 1833 when slavery was abolished with the Abolition Act.
Men such as William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson are remembered as the heroes of the abolitionist movement. However, the names of the women who played a prominent role at a grassroots level in campaigning for the end of the British slave trade and slavery in the colonies are less well known.
The Quaker Elizabeth Heyrick wrote leaflets and lobbied, and her actions pushed mainstream abolitionists into a more radical strategy.
Women, who at the time did not have the vote or political power of any kind, decided, instead, to write, and they adopted lobbying tactics which mobilised public opinion. They organised boycotts of slave-grown sugar, arranged visits to shops and households, and organised mass petitions.
Before the slave trade became illegal in Britain, British slave traders exported millions of African slaves in the Triangular Trade between Africa, the New World and Europe.
Sources:
http://abolition.e2bn.org/slavery_113.html
Indian food and the First Indian Take-aways in Regency London
The first appearance of curry on a menu was at the Norris Street Coffee House, Haymarket, London, in 1773. By 1784 curry and rice had become house specialties in some of the most fashionable restaurants in London’s Piccadilly.
The Hindoostane Coffee house was Britain’s first dedicated Indian restaurant, opened by an Indian migrant by the name of Sake Dean Mahomed.
Mr Mahomed served “Indianised” British foods which would appeal to the Indian aristocracy in London, and to the British who had returned from India.
His restaurant also had a home-delivery service, as outlined in the following advertorial:
Sake Dean Mahomed, manufacturer of the real currie powder, takes the earliest opportunity to inform the nobility and gentry, that he has, under the patronage of the first men of quality who have resided in India, established at his house, 34 George Street, Portman-Square, the Hindoostane Dinner and Hooka Smoking Club. Apartments are fitted up for their entertainment in the Eastern style, where dinners, composed of genuine Hindoostane dishes, are served up at the shortest notice.
Such ladies and gentlemen as may be desirous of having India Dinners dressed and sent to their own houses will be punctually attended to by giving previous notice.
According to the Muslim Museum Initiative website, there were other restaurants serving Indian food before Mr Mahomed’s Hindoostane Coffee House, but his was the first to be run by an Indian. However, within three years, Mr Mahomed applied for bankruptcy. The restaurant carried on until 1833, under the management of Mr Mahomed’s former partner John Spencer.
Sources:
Star of India: The Spicy Adventures of Curry by Jo Monroe
https://londonist.com/2016/06/the-story-of-london-s-first-indian-restaurant
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4290124.stm
The Frost Fair of 1814
The Frost Fair of 1814 began in London on 1st February, and lasted four days. An elephant was led across the river below Blackfriars Bridge. George Davis, a printer, published a 124-page book called Frostiana; or a History of the River Thames in a Frozen State. The entire book was type-set and printed in Davis’s printing stall, which had been set up on the frozen Thames. This was the last of the famous Frost Fairs which took place during the Little Ice Age, roughly between 1350 -1850.
As the climate grew milder, the replacement of the old London Bridge in 1831 with a new bridge with wider arches, allowed the tide to flow more freely, and the embanking of stages of the river in the 19th century prevented the river from freezing over again as it did in 1814.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Thames_frost_fairs
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25862141
Readers who have read Lord Fenmore’s Wager, the prequel to A Marchioness Below Stairs.
Credits
Editor: Romy Sommer
Cover Designer: Melody Simmons
About the Author
Alissa Baxter wrote her first Regency romance, The Dashing Debutante, during her long university holidays. After traveling the world, she settled down to write her second Regency romance, Lord Fenmore’s Wager, which was inspired by her time living on a country estate in England. Also the author of two contemporary romances, Send and Receive and The Blog Affair, Alissa currently lives in Johannesburg with her husband and two sons. To find out more about Alissa’s books, sign up for her newsletter at www.alissabaxter.com.
Copyright © 2017 by Alissa Baxter
Electronically published in 2017 by Belgrave House
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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.