D.W. Wilkin's Blog, page 152

Regency Personalities Series-Admiral Sir Joseph Sydney Yorke

Regency Personalities Series

In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the��many period notables.

Admiral Sir Joseph Sydney Yorke

6 June 1768 ��� 5 May 1831

Joseph Sydney Yorke

Admiral Sir Joseph Sydney Yorke was born in Great Berkhampstead, Hertfordshire, on 6 June 1768, the second son, by his second marriage, of the politician Charles Yorke. He joined the navy at the age of 11, becoming a midshipman aboard HMS��Duke, then under the command of Sir Charles Douglas, on 15 February 1780. He followed Douglas to his next command, HMS��Formidable, which flew the flag of Admiral George Rodney. Yorke was then present at Rodney’s victory over Fran��ois Joseph Paul de Grasse at the Battle of the Saintes from 9 April to 12 April 1782. The end of the American Revolutionary War led to the Formidable returning to Britain to be paid off. Yorke remained in employment however, transferring with Douglas to HMS��Assistance, and then moving to HMS��Salisbury, under the command of Sir Erasmus Gower, filling the post of master’s mate. Yorke spent three years in total serving on the Newfoundland Station.

Yorke was promoted to lieutenant on 16 June 1789, and moved aboard the 50-gun HMS��Adamant to serve under Admiral Sir Richard Hughes. He later served as lieutenant aboard HMS��Thisbe and HMS��Victory and in February 1791 he was appointed master and commander of the sloop HMS��Rattlesnake. He remained aboard her, carrying out cruises into the English Channel until the outbreak of war with France in 1793. He was promoted to Post-Captain on 4 February 1793 and given command of the frigate HMS��Circe, then part of a squadron under Admiral Richard Howe. He patrolled off the French port of Brest, and captured the corvette L’Espiegle.

Yorke moved to HMS��Stag in August 1794, and continued to serve in the Channel, occasionally ranging into the North Sea. On 22 August the Stag and a small British squadron chased two large ships and a cutter, eventually bringing the sternmost one to battle. An hour-long fight ensued, after which the enemy, subsequently found to be the Batavian frigate Alliance, was forced to surrender. Yorke moved to command the newly built HMS��Jason in March 1800, and by 1801 was in command of the 74-gun third rate HMS��Canada. He commanded her until the Treaty of Amiens in 1802 brought a period of temporary peace. On the resumption of the war in 1803 Yorke was appointed to the 98-gun HMS��Prince George, followed by HMS��Barfleur and then HMS��Christian VII, an 80-gun former Danish ship captured at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1807.

Yorke was knighted during this period of service, on 21 April 1805, by King George III. On 23 April, Yorke was present at the installation of the Knights of the Garter, standing in for his brother, Philip Yorke, Earl of Hardwicke. Philip was at this time Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and so was unable to be present in person. In 1810 Joseph Yorke’s brother, Charles Philip Yorke became First Lord of the Admiralty and Joseph was transferred from command of the Christian VII to take up a seat on the Admiralty board.

Joseph Yorke was promoted to Rear-Admiral of the Blue on 31 July 1810 and hoisted his flag in the 74-gun HMS��Vengeance in January 1811. He sailed to the Tagus carrying reinforcements for Arthur Wellesley’s army, fighting in the Peninsular War. After carrying this out he escorted a fleet returning to Britain from the East Indies. Yorke was promoted to Rear-Admiral of the White on 12 August 1812, Rear-Admiral of the Red on 4 December 1813, Vice-Admiral of the Blue on 14 June 1814, and served on the Admiralty board until resigning in April 1818. He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in the restructuring of that order in January 1815, promoted Vice-Admiral of the White on 12 August 1819, and promoted to Admiral of the Blue on 22 July 1830.

Yorke stood as a candidate for the constituency of Reigate in 1790, and was returned as its member. He represented the borough until 1806, when he was elected as member for St Germans. He stood aside, “taking the Chiltern Hundreds” in 1810 so that his brother, Charles Philip Yorke, could be elected. In the 1812 general election Joseph Yorke stood as a candidate for Sandwich and was returned as its member. He represented the borough until 1818 when he was re-elected to the Reigate constituency, which he represented until his death. Yorke’s business interests include the chairmanship of the Waterloo Bridge Company.

On 29 March 1798, Yorke married Elizabeth Weake Rattray, the daughter of James Rattray, in Ireland. The couple had a number of children before Elizabeth’s death on 20 January 1812. His eldest son, Charles Yorke also served in the navy, rising to the rank of Admiral, and on the death without heir of Joseph Yorke’s brother Philip, the 3rd Earl of Hardwicke in 1834, Charles became the 4th Earl. On 22 May 1813, Joseph married a second time, to Urania Anne, the Dowager Marchioness of Clanricarde, and daughter of George Paulet, 12th Marquess of Winchester, at St. Martin in the Fields, Westminster, London. The marriage did not produce any children.

On 5 May 1831 Yorke was returning from visiting Henry Hotham’s flagship, HMS��St Vincent, then moored at Spithead. He was making his way back to shore aboard the yacht Catherine, in company with Captains Matthew Barton Bradby and Thomas Young, and a seaman named John Chandler, when the boat was struck by lightning in Stokes Bay, causing it to capsize. All aboard were drowned. The bodies were later recovered and an inquest returned a verdict of accidental death. Yorke was buried at the family tomb in the parish church at Wimpole, close to Wimpole Hall, the seat of the Earls of Hardwicke.

Caution’s Heir from Regency Assembly Press-Now available everywhere!

Caution���s Heir

Caution���s Heir is now available at all our internet retailers and also in physical form as well

The Trade Paperback version is now available for purchase here @ $15.99 (but as of this writing, it looks like Amazon has still discounted it 10%)

Caution���s Heir is also available digitally for $4.99 @ the iBookstore, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and Smashwords.

The image for the cover is a Cruikshank, A Game of Whist; Tom & Jerry among the ���Swell Broad Coves.��� Tom and Jerry was a very popular series of stories at the time.

Teaching a boor a lesson is one thing.

Winning all that the man owns is more than Lord Arthur Herrington expects. Especially when he finds that his winnings include the boor���s daughter!

The Duke of Northampshire spent fortunes in his youth. The reality of which his son, Arthur the Earl of Daventry, learns all too well when sent off to school with nothing in his pocket. Learning to fill that pocket leads him on a road to frugality and his becoming a sober man of Town. A sober but very much respected member of the Ton.

Lady Louisa Booth did not have much hope for her father, known in the country for his profligate ways. Yet when the man inherited her gallant uncle���s title and wealth, she hoped he would reform. Alas, that was not to be the case.

When she learned everything was lost, including her beloved home, she made it her purpose to ensure that Lord Arthur was not indifferent to her plight. An unmarried young woman cast adrift in society without a protector. A role that Arthur never thought to be cast as. A role he had little idea if he could rise to such occasion. Yet would Louisa find Arthur to be that one true benefactor? Would Arthur make this obligation something more? Would a game of chance lead to love?

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From our tale:

Chapter One

St. Oswald���s church was bleak, yet beautiful all in one breath. 13th century arches that soared a tad more than twenty feet above the nave provided a sense of grandeur, permanence and gravitas. These prevailed within, while the turret-topped tower without, once visible for miles around now vied with mature trees to gain the eye of passers-by.

On sunny days stain-glass windows, paid for by a Plantagenet Baron who lived four hundred years before and now only remembered because of this gift, cast charming rainbow beams across the inner sanctum. And on grey overcast days ghostly shadows danced along the aisle.

As per the custom of parish churches the first three pews were set-aside for the gentry. On this day the second pew, behind the seat reserved for the Marquess of Hroek, who hadn���t attended since the passing of his son and heir, was Louisa Booth his niece and her companion Mrs Bottomworth.

Mrs Bottomworth was a stocky matron on the good side of fifty. Barely on the good side of fifty. But one would not say that was an unfortunate thing for she wore her years well and kept her charge free of trouble. Mrs Bottomworth���s charge was an only child, who would still have been in the schoolroom excepting the fact of the death of her mother some years earlier. This had aged the girl quickly, and made her hostess to her father���s household. The Honourable Hector Booth, third son of the previous Marquess, maintained a modest house on his income of 300 pounds. That was quite a nice sum for just the man and one daughter, with but five servants. They lived in a small, two floor house with four rooms. It should be noted that this of course left two bedchambers that were not inhabited by family members. As the Honourable Mr Booth saved his excess pounds for certain small vices that confined themselves with drink and the occasional wager on a horse, these two rooms were seldom opened.

Mrs Bottomworth had thought to make use of one of the empty rooms when she took up her position, but the Honourable Hector Booth advised and instructed her to share his daughter���s room. For the last four years this is what she had done. When two such as these shared a room, it was natural that they would either become best of friends, or resent each other entirely. Happily the former occurred as Louisa was in need of a confidant to fill the void left in her mother���s absence, and Mrs Bottomworth had a similar void as her two daughters had grown and gone on to make their own lives.

The Honourable Mr Booth took little effort in concerning himself with such matters as he was ever about his brother���s house, or ensconced in a comfortable seat at either the local tavern or the Inn. If those locations had felt he was too warm for them, he would make a circuit of what friends and acquaintances he had in the county. The Honourable Mr Booth would spend an hour or two with a neighbour discussing dogs or hunters, neither of which he could afford to keep, though he did borrow a fine mount of his brother to ride to the hunt. The Marquess took little notice, having reduced his view of the world by degrees when first his beloved younger brother who was of an age between the surviving Honourable Mr Booth had perished shortly after the Marquess��� marriage. Their brother had fallen in the tropics of a fever. Then the Marquess had lost his second child, a little girl in her infancy, his wife but a few years after, and most recently his son and heir to the wars with Napoleon.

This caused the Honourable Mr Booth to be heir to Hroek, a situation that had occurred after he had lost his own wife. With that tragedy, Mr Booth had found more time to make friends with all sorts of new bottles, though not to a degree that it was considered remarkable beyond a polite word. Mr Booth was not a drunkard. He was confronting his grief with a sociability that was acceptable in the county.

Louisa, however, was cast further adrift. No father to turn to. No uncle who had been the patriarch of the family her entire life. And certainly now no feminine examples to follow but her companion and governess, Mrs Bottomworth. That Mrs Bottomworth was an excellent choice for the task was more due to acts of the Marquess, still able to think clearly at the time she was employed, than to the Honourable Mr Booth. Mr Booth was amenable to any suggestion of his elder brother for that man controlled his purse, and as Mr Booth was consumed with grief, while the Marquess had adapted to various causes of grief prior to the final straw of his heir���s death, the Marquess of Hroek clearly saw a solution to what was a problem.

Now in her pew, where once as a young girl she had been surrounded by her cousins, parents, uncles and aunt, she sat alone except for her best of friends. Louisa was full of life in her pew, her cheeks a shade of pink that contrasted with auburn hair, which glistened as sunlight that flowed though the coloured panes of glass touched it from beneath her bonnet. Blue eyes shown over a small straight nose, her teeth were straight, though two incisors were ever so slightly bigger than one would attribute to a gallery beauty painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence.

She was four inches taller than five feet, so rather tall for a young woman, but her genes bred true, and many a girl of the aristocracy was slightly taller than those women who were of humbler origins. Her back was straight and for an observant man, of which there were some few in the county, her figure might be discussed. The wrath though of her uncle the Marquess would not wish to be bourne should it be found out that her form had become a topic amongst the young men. Noteworthy though was that she had a figure that men thought inspiring enough to tempt that wrath, and think on it. A full bosom was high on her chest, below her heart shaped face. She was lean of form, though her hips flared just enough that one could see definition in her torso. Certainly a beauty Sir Thomas��� brushes would wish the honour to meet.

The vicar Mr Spotslet had at one time in his early days in the community, discussed the Sunday sermons with the Marquess. Mr Spotslet had enjoyed long discussions of theology, philosophy, natural history and the holy writ that were then thoughtfully couched in terms to be made accessible by the parish. The lassitude that had overtaken the Marquess had caused those interviews to become shortened and infrequent and as such the sermons suffered, as many were wont to note. There had been dialogues that Mr Spotslet had engaged in with the attendees of his masses. Now he seemed to have lost his way and delivered soliloquies.

This day Mr Spotslet indulged in a speech that talked to the vices of gambling. The local sports, of which the Honourable Mr Booth was an intimate, had raced their best through the village green the previous Wednesday for but a prize of one quid, and this small bet had caused pandemonium when Mrs McCaster had fallen in the street with her washing spread everywhere and trampled by the horses. Not much further along the path, Mr Smith the grocer���s delivery for the vicar himself was dropped by the boy and turned into detritus as that too was stampeded over. A natural choice for a sermon, yet only two of the culprits were in attendance this day. The rest had managed to find reasons to avoid the Mass.

Louisa squirmed a little in her seat the moment she realised that her father had been one of the men that the sermon was speaking of. Was she not the centre of everyone���s gaze at such a time? Her father having refused to attend for some years, and her uncle unable due to his illness. She was the representative of the much reduced family. Not only was it expected that the parish would look to her as the Booth of Hroek, but with her father���s actions called to the attentions of all, it was natural that they look at her again. This time in a light that did not reflect well on her father and she knew that she had no control over that at all.

Mrs Bottomworth, who might have been lightly resting her eyes, Louisa would credit her in such a generous way, came to tensing at the mention of the incident. Louisa did not want to bring her friend to full wakefulness, but Mrs Bottomworth realised what was occurring and the direction that the sermon was taking. Louisa���s companion took her hand and patted it reassuringly.

���Perhaps a social call on Lady Walker?��� Mrs Bottomworth suggested as they walked back to the house after services. The house which sat just within the estate boundaries was four hundred feet off the main bridal way that led to Hroek Castle. A small road had been cleared from the gatehouse to the house that Mr Booth now maintained, and this the two women travelled.

Louisa generally appreciated visits such as this as she had gotten older, and certainly several of the adults in the neighbourhood showed a kindly interest in her education and the development of her social manners. ���I think I shall go to the castle and read to my uncle.��� A task that she had done each day of the last fortnight but one.

���We have not talked, but you and the Marquess had an interview with the doctors.��� Mrs Bottomworth had tried to comfort her charge after that, but Louisa had waved her hand and gone to sit quietly under a yew tree that had a grand vista of the park leading to Hroek Castle.

�����Uncle will be most lucky if he should be with us come Michaelmas.���

���That will be a sad day when we lose such a friend.��� These were words of comfort. Mrs Bottomworth had been well encouraged in her charge by the Marquess but one could not say that they interacted greatly with one another. The Marquess ensured that his brother heeded the suggestions and advisements of Mrs Bottomworth as the Honourable Mr Booth left to his own devices would have kept his daughter in the nursery and would have forgotten to send a governess to provide her with instruction.

���Indeed, my uncle may not have been one of the great men of England, but he is well regarded in the county.��� Often with that statement followed the next, ���Warmly remembered is it when the Prince Regent came and stayed for a fortnight of sport and entertainment.��� This had been many years before, and certainly before any of the tragedies beset the line of the Booths.

���Yes, I have heard it said with great earnestness. But come let us change your clothes and then we shall go up to the great house. I shall have Mallow fetch the gig so we may proceed all the more expeditiously.���

���That would be good, but we will have to use the dogcart. Father was to take the gig to see Sir Mark today, or so he said at breakfast.��� Where Louisa knew he would drink the Baronet’s sherry for a couple hours before thinking to return, unless he was asked to stay for dinner.

Regency Personalities Series-George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower 2nd Duke of Sutherland

Regency Personalities Series

In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the��many period notables.

George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower 2nd Duke of Sutherland

8 August 1786 ��� 22 February 1861

George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower

George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower 2nd Duke of Sutherland who was born at Portland Place, London was the eldest son of George Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland and his wife Elizabeth Gordon, de jure Countess of Sutherland.

He was educated at Harrow School between 1798 and 1803, then entered Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1806 and M.A. in 1810. In 1841 he was made D.C.L. by the same university.

His father died in 1833, only six months after being created Duke of Sutherland by William IV for his support of the Reform Act 1832, and so this new title devolved on his eldest son. His mother, who was 19th Countess of Sutherland in her own right, died in 1839, and so her ancient Scottish title passed to George, who also became 20th Earl of Sutherland. As a result, the two titles became united in the same person until 1963. It was the 2nd Duke who assumed the additional surname of Sutherland so that his family name became Sutherland-Leveson-Gower.

Between 1806 and 1808, Earl Gower travelled in Prussia and Russia. During the Prussian campaign against Napoleon’s French forces, he spent time at the Prussians’ general headquarters.

After returning from Europe, Earl Gower entered the Commons as M.P. for the Cornwall rotten borough of St Mawes in 1808. In 1812, he transferred to sit for the Staffordshire borough of Newcastle-Under-Lyme, until 1815, when he stood to become one of the county M.P.s for Staffordshire, sitting until 1820.

He was also Lord Lieutenant for the County of Sutherland from 1831 until his death, was appointed High Steward of the Borough of Stafford in 1833, and was Lord Lieutenant of Shropshire from 1839 to 1845.

He was made K.G. in 1841.

Sutherland took part in a first-class cricket match in 1816, playing for E. H. Budd’s XI and totalling 4 runs with a highest score of 4.

He was a keen book collector and was one of the founder members of the Roxburghe Club in 1812.

He was a trustee of the National Gallery from 1835 and of the British Museum from 1841 to his death, as well as appointed a Fine Arts Commissioner in 1841.

Sutherland was partially deaf and therefore decided not to play a very active part in politics which was the path well worn by his contemporary peers. Instead he expended his energies by spending some of his vast wealth which he inherited from his father on improving his homes. In 1845 he employed Sir Charles Barry to make vast alterations to Dunrobin Castle. Barry transformed the place into the 189 room ducal palace which we see today. In addition to Dunrobin, the Duke also had Barry completely remodel his Staffordshire seat of Trentham Hall, Cliveden House in Buckinghamshire, and the family’s London townhouse, Stafford House, which was the most valuable private home in the whole of London.

The Duke died, aged seventy-five, at Trentham Hall in Staffordshire, one of his English mansions. He is buried at St George’s Church Cemetery, Telford, Shropshire.

Sutherland married Lady Harriet Elizabeth Georgiana Howard (1806 ��� 27 October 1868), daughter of George Howard, 6th Earl of Carlisle, on 28 May 1823. They had eleven children, seven daughters and four sons:

Lady Elizabeth Georgiana (30 May 1824-25 May 1878), married George Douglas Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll and had issue.
Lady Evelyn Leveson-Gower (8 August 1825-24 Nov 1869), married Charles Stuart, 12th Lord Blantyre
Lady Caroline Leveson-Gower (15 April 1827-13 May 1887), married Charles FitzGerald, 4th Duke of Leinster and had issue.
Lord George Granville William (19 December 1828-22 September 1892), succeeded as 3rd Duke.
Lady Blanche Julia Sutherland-Leveson-Gower (26 June 1830-24 February 1832)
Lord Frederick George Leveson-Gower (11 November 1832- 6 Oct 1854)
Lady Constance Leveson-Gower (later Sutherland-Leveson-Gower in 1841)(16 Jun 1834-19 Dec 1880), married Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster and had issue.
Lady Victoria Sutherland-Leveson-Gower (16 May 1838-19 June 1839)
Lord Albert (21 Nov 1843���1874), married Grace Abdy, daughter of Sir Thomas Neville Abdy, 1st Baronet and had issue, including Frederick Neville Sutherland Leveson-Gower.
Lord Ronald Charles Sutherland-Leveson-Gower (2 August 1845���9 March 1916), died unmarried.
Lady Alexandrina Sutherland-Leveson-Gower (03 Feb 1848-21 June 1849)

RAP’s has Beggars Can’t Be Choosier

Beggars Can���t Be Choosier

One of the our most recent Regency Romances.

Beggars has won the prestigious Romance Reviews Magazine Award for Outstanding Historical Romance:

It is available for sale and I hope that you will take the opportunity to order your copy.

For yourself or as a gift. It is now available in a variety of formats. For $3.99 you can get this Regency Romance for your eReader. A little more as an actual physical book.

When a fortune purchases a title, love shall never flourish, for a heart that is bought, can never be won.

The Earl of Aftlake has struggled since coming into his inheritance. Terrible decisions by his father has left him with an income of only 100 pounds a year. For a Peer, living on such a sum is near impossible. Into his life comes the charming and beautiful Katherine Chandler. She has a fortune her father made in the India trade.

Together, a title and a fortune can be a thing that can achieve great things for all of England. Together the two can start a family and restore the Aftlake fortunes. Together they form an alliance.

But a partnership of this nature is not one of love. And terms of the partnership will allow both to one day seek a love that they both deserve for all that they do. But will Brian Forbes Pangentier find the loves he desires or the love he deserves?

And Katherine, now Countess Aftlake, will she learn to appreciate the difference between happiness and wealth? Can love and the admiration of the TON combine or are the two mutually exclusive?

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Regency Personalities Series-William Ward (Mayor)

Regency Personalities Series

In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the��many period notables.

William Ward (Mayor)

1807 ��� 20 July 1889

William Ward was the son of Henry Ward (1780���1852), who himself was the son of Abraham Ward from Warwickshire. His mother was Sarah Ward (1779���1858), the daughter of Abraham Ward (1739���1817) from Stafford and Oxford.

Ward became a coal merchant as his father had been before him. His business was based at the canal wharf on the Oxford Canal in Jericho, Oxford.

William Ward married Harriet Timmis on 20 July 1830. They lived at the junction of St John Street and Alfred Street (now Pusey Street) in central Oxford. The house is now 22 St John Street. Eleven children were born to them in this house between 1832 and 1847, all baptised at St Giles’ Church nearby.

Ward was Mayor of Oxford in 1851���2 and again in 1861���2.

In 1868, Ward was elected the first President of the newly formed Oxford Constitutional Association. He became known as the father of modern Conservatism in Oxford. Ward was also a leader in the Oxford Movement. He donated the land in Jericho for the building of St Barnabas’ Church in 1869.

Ward erected a drinking fountain on the site of the spring at Walton Well, located in Walton Well Road, with a plaque dated 1885.

Ward died in 20 July 1889 aged 82 and was buried in the family vault at St Mary Magdalen’s Church. His wife died on 26 July 1876 aged 67 and was buried in the same church.

Conclusion of the Trolling Series-We’ll All Go A Trolling

We���ll All Go A Trolling Not only do I write Regency and Romance, but I also have delved into Fantasy.

The Trolling series is the story of a man, Humphrey. We meet him as he has left youth and become a man with a man���s responsibilities.

We follow him in a series of stories that encompass the stages of life. We see him when he starts his family, when he has older sons and the father son dynamic is tested.

We see him when his children begin to marry and have children, and at the end of his life when those he has loved, and those who were his friends proceed him over the threshold into death.

All this while he serves a kingdom troubled by monsters. Troubles that he and his friends will learn to deal with and rectify. It is now available in a variety of formats.

For $2.99 you can get this fantasy adventure.

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King Humphrey, retired, has his 80th birthday approaching. An event that he is not looking forward to.

A milestone, of course, but he has found traveling to Torc, the capital of the Valley Kingdom of Torahn, a trial. He enjoys his life in the country, far enough from the center of power where his son Daniel now is King and rules.

Peaceful days sitting on the porch. Reading, writing, passing the time with his guardsmen, his wife, and the visits of his grandson who has moved into a manor very near.

Why go to Torc where he was to be honored, but would certainly have a fight with his son, the current king. The two were just never going to see eye to eye, and Humphrey, at the age of 80, was no longer so concerned with all that happened to others.

He was waiting for his audience with the Gods where all his friends had preceded him. It would be his time soon enough.

Yet, the kingdom wanted him to attend the celebrations, and there were to be many. So many feasts and fireworks he could not keep track, but the most important came at the end, when word was brought that the Trolls were attacking once more.

Now Humphrey would sit as regent for his son, who went off to fight the ancient enemy. Humphrey had ruled the kingdom before, so it should not have been overwhelming, but at eighty, even the little things could prove troublesome.

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Regency Personalities Series-Sir William Molesworth 8th Baronet

Regency Personalities Series

In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the��many period notables.

Sir William Molesworth 8th Baronet

23 May 1810 ��� 22 October 1855

William Molesworth

Sir William Molesworth 8th Baronet was a Radical British politician, who served in the coalition cabinet of The Earl of Aberdeen from 1853 until his death in 1855 as First Commissioner of Works and then Colonial Secretary.

Much later, when justifying to the Queen his own new appointments, Gladstone told her: “For instance, even in Ld Aberdeen’s Govt, in 52, Sir William Molesworth had been selected, at that time, a very advanced Radical, but who was perfectly harmless, & took little, or no part… He said these people generally became very moderate, when they were in office”, which she admitted had been the case.

Molesworth was born in London and succeeded to the baronetcy in 1823. He was educated privately before entering St John’s College, Cambridge as a fellow commoner. Moving to Trinity College, he fought a duel with his tutor, and was sent down from the university. He also studied abroad and at Edinburgh University for some time.

On the passing of the Reform Act 1832 Molesworth was returned to Parliament for the Eastern division of Cornwall, to support the ministry of Lord Grey. Through Charles Buller he made the acquaintance of George Grote and James Mill, and in April 1835 he founded, in conjunction with Roebuck, the London Review, as an organ of the Philosophic Radicals. After the publication of two volumes he purchased the Westminster Review, and for some time the united magazines were edited by him and J. S. Mill.

From 1837 to 1841 Molesworth sat for Leeds, and acquired considerable influence in the House of Commons by his speeches and by his tact in presiding over the select committee on Penal transportation. But his Radicalism made little impression either on the house or on his constituency. In 1839 he commenced and carried to completion, at a cost of ��6000, a reprint of the entire miscellaneous and voluminous writings of Thomas Hobbes, which were placed in most of the English university and provincial libraries. The publication did him great disservice in public life, his opponents endeavouring to identify him with the freethinking opinions of Thomas Hobbes in religion as well as with the philosopher’s conclusions in favor of despotic government. From 1841 to 1845 he had no seat in parliament, but in 1842 served as High Sheriff of Cornwall

In 1845 Molesworth was returned for Southwark, and retained that seat until his death. On his return to parliament he devoted special attention to the condition of the colonies, and was the ardent champion of their self-government. In January 1853, Lord Aberdeen included him as the only Radical in his coalition cabinet as First Commissioner of Works, the chief work by which his name was brought into prominence at this time being the construction of the new Westminster Bridge; he also was the first to open Kew Gardens on Sundays. In July 1855, he was made Colonial Secretary, an office he held until his death in October of the same year.

Molesworth married Andalusia Grant Carstairs (d. 16 May 1888) on 9 July 1844.

He died on 22 October 1855, aged 45. He is buried at Kensal Green Cemetery, London, on the north side of the main path leading from the entrance to the central chapel.

RAP has The End of the World

The End of the World This is the first of the Regency Romances I published. It is available for sale and I hope that you will take the opportunity to order your copy.

For yourself or as a gift. It is now available in a variety of formats. And now at the reduced price of $3.99 you can get this Regency Romance for your eReader. A little more as an actual physical book.

Barnes and Noble for your Nook

Smashwords

iBookstore

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Hermione Merwyn leads a pleasant, quiet life with her father, in the farthest corner of England. All is as it should be, though change is sure to come.�� For she and her sister have reached the age of marriage, but that can be no great adventure when life at home has already been so bountiful.

When Samuel Lynchhammer arrives in Cornwall, having journeyed the width of the country, he is down to his last few quid and needs to find work for his keep. Spurned by the most successful mine owner in the county, Gavin Tadcaster, Samuel finds work for Gavin���s adversary, Sir Lawrence Merwyn.

Can working for Sir Lawrence, the father of two young women on the cusp of their first season to far away London, be what Samuel needs to help him resolve the reasons for his running away from his obligations in the east of the country?

Will the daughters be able to find happiness in the desolate landscapes and deadly mines of their home? When a stranger arrives in Cornwall while the war rages on the Peninsula, is he the answer to one���s prayers, or a nightmare wearing the disguise of a gentleman?

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Regency Personalities Series-Madame Anne Louise Germaine de Sta��l-Holstein

Regency Personalities Series

In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the��many period notables.

Madame Anne Louise Germaine de Sta��l-Holstein

22 April 1766 ��� 14 July 1817

Anne Louise Germaine de Sta��l-Holstein

(DWW-Note that Madame de Sta��l is obviously not British, but she is important to the period of the Regency and the opposition to Napoleon and France)

Madame Anne Louise Germaine de Sta��l-Holstein was born in Paris, France. Her father was the prominent Swiss banker and statesman Jacques Necker, who was the Director of Finance under King Louis XVI of France. Her mother was Suzanne Curchod, hostess of one of the most popular salons of Paris, where figures such as Buffon, Marmontel, Melchior Grimm, Edward Gibbon, the Abb�� Raynal, and Jean-Fran��ois de la Harpe were frequent guests. Mme Necker wanted to educate her daughter according the principles of J.J. Rousseau and to endow her with the intellectual education and Calvinist discipline instilled in her by her own Protestant pastor father. Yet she habitually brought Germaine as a young child to sit at her feet in her salon, where the sober intellectuals took pleasure in stimulating the brilliant child. This exposure occasioned a breakdown in adolescence, but the seeds of a literary vocation had been sown irrevocably.

During the next few years after Jacques Necker’s dismissal from office, they resided in 1784 in Coppet at Ch��teau Coppet, her father’s estate on Lake Geneva, which she later would make famous. They returned to the Paris region in 1785, and Mlle Necker continued to write miscellaneous works, including a three-act romantic drama, Sophie, written in 1786, and a five-act tragedy, Jeanne Grey, written in 1787. Both plays were published in 1790.

Soon Germaine’s parents became impatient for her to marry; and they are said to have objected to her marrying a Roman Catholic, which, in France, considerably limited her choice. There is a legend that William Pitt the Younger thought of her. The somewhat notorious lover of Julie de Lespinasse, Guibert, a cold-hearted coxcomb of some talent, certainly paid her addresses.

Finally, she married Baron Erik Magnus Sta��l von Holstein, who was first an attach�� of the Swedish legation, and then minister. For a great heiress and a very ambitious girl, the marriage did not seem brilliant, but Sta��l had fortune and her husband standing. A singular series of negotiations secured from the king of Sweden a promise of an ambassadorship for 12 years and a pension in case of its withdrawal, and the marriage took place on 14 January 1786 in the chapel of the embassy.

The husband was 37, the wife 20. Mme de Sta��l was accused of extravagance. This was a mere legal formality, however, and on the whole the marriage seems to have been acceptable to both parties, neither of whom had any affection for the other. The baron obtained money and his wife obtained, as a guaranteed ambassadress of a foreign power of consideration, a much higher position at court and in society than she could have secured by marrying almost any Frenchman, without the inconveniences which might have been expected had she married a Frenchman superior to herself in rank.

Then in 1788 (a year prior to the French Revolution) she appeared as an author under her own name with Letters on the works and character of J.J. Rousseau. This fervid panegyric, written for a limited number of friends, demonstrated evident talent but little in the way of critical discernment. She was at this time, and indeed generally, enthusiastic for a mixture of Rousseauism and constitutionalism in politics. Her novels were bestsellers and her literary criticism was highly influential. When she was allowed to live in Paris she greatly encouraged any political dissident from Louis’s regime. She exulted in the meeting of the estates general on 4 and 5 May.

Her first child, a boy, was born in 1790 the week before Necker finally left France in unpopularity and disgrace; and the increasing disturbances of the Revolution made her privileges as ambassadress very important safeguards. She visited Coppet once or twice, but for the most part in the early days of the revolutionary period she was in Paris taking an interest in, and attending the Assembly, and holding a salon on the Rue du Bac, attended by Talleyrand, Abb�� Delille, Clermont-Tonnerre, and Gouverneur Morris.

At last, the day before the September massacres (1792), she fled, befriended by Manuel and Tallien. Her own account of her escape is, as usual, so florid that it provokes the question whether she was really in any danger. Directly it does not seem that she was; but she had generously strained the privileges of the embassy to protect some threatened friends, and this was a serious matter.

She then moved to Coppet Castle, and there gathered round her a considerable number of friends and fellow-refugees, the beginning of the salon which at intervals during the next 25 years made the place so famous. However, in 1793 she made a long visit to England, and established a connection with other emigrants: Talleyrand, Narbonne, Montmorency, Jaucourt and others. There was not a little scandal about her relations with Narbonne; and this Mickleham sojourn (the details of which are known from, among other sources, the letters of Fanny Burney) has never been altogether satisfactorily accounted for.

In the summer, she returned to Coppet and wrote a pamphlet on the queen’s execution. The next year, her mother died at Beaulieu Castle, and the fall of Robespierre opened the way back to Paris. Her husband (whose mission had been in abeyance and who was in Holland for three years) was accredited to the French republic by the regent of Sweden; his wife reopened her salon and for a time was conspicuous in the motley and eccentric society of the Directory. She also published several small works, the chief being the essays Sur l’influence des passions “On the influence of passions” (1796), and Sur la lit��rature consid��r��e dans ses rapports avec les institutions sociales (1800).

It was during these years that Mme de Sta��l was of chief political importance. Narbonne’s place had been supplanted by Benjamin Constant, whom she first met at Belle van Zuylen in 1794, and who had a very great influence over her, as in return she had over him. Both personal and political reasons threw her into opposition to Bonaparte. Her own preference for a moderate republic or a constitutional monarchy was quite sincere, and, even if it had not been so, her own character and Napoleon’s were too much alike in some points to admit of their getting on together. For some years, she was able to alternate between Coppet and Paris without difficulty, though not without knowing that the First Consul disliked her. In 1797 she, as above mentioned, separated formally from her husband. In 1799, he was recalled by the king of Sweden, and in 1802 he died, duly attended by her. Besides a daughter (Gustavine, 1787���1789) who died in infancy and the eldest son Auguste Louis (1790���1827), they had two other children ��� a son Albert (1792���1813), and a daughter Albertine (1797���1838), who afterwards married Victor, 3rd duc de Broglie. The paternity of these children is uncertain.

The date of the beginning of what Mme de Sta��l’s admirers call her duel with Napoleon is not easy to determine. Judging from the title of her book Dix annees d’exil (“Ten years of exile”), it should be put at 1804; judging from the time at which it became pretty clear that the first man in France and she who wished to be the first woman in France were not likely to get on together, it might be put several years earlier. Napoleon said about her, according to the Memoirs of Mme. de Remusat, that she “teaches people to think who never thought before, or who had forgotten how to think.”

It displeased Napoleon that Mme de Sta��l should show herself recalcitrant to his influence. But it probably pleased Mme de Sta��l to quite an equal degree that Napoleon should apparently put forth his power to crush her and fail. Both personages had a curious touch of theatricality. If Mme de Sta��l had really desired to take up her struggle against Napoleon seriously, she need only have established herself in England at the peace of Amiens, but she lingered on at Coppet. There, she was shadowed by Napoleon’s spies due to her tendency to defy Napoleon’s orders, firstly that she keep away from Paris, and later out of France altogether, leaving her restless and lonely in rural Switzerland and constantly yearning after her beloved Paris.

In 1802, she published the first of her noteworthy books, the novel Delphine, in which the femme incomprise was in a manner introduced to French literature, and in which she and not a few of her intimates appeared in transparent disguise. In the autumn of 1803, she returned to Paris. Had she not made her anxiety about exile so public, it remains unclear whether Napoleon would have exiled her; but, as she began at once appealing to all sorts of persons to protect her, he seems to have thought it better that she should not be protected. She was directed not to reside within 40 leagues of Paris, and after considerable delay she determined to go to Germany.

She journeyed, in company with Constant, by Metz and Frankfurt to Weimar, and arrived there in December. There she stayed during the very long winter and then went to Berlin, where she made the acquaintance of August Wilhelm Schlegel, who afterwards became one of her intimates at Coppet. Thence she travelled to Vienna, where, in April, the news of her father’s dangerous illness and shortly of his death (8 April) reached her.

She returned to Coppet, and found herself its wealthy and independent mistress, but her sorrow for her father was deep and certainly sincere. She spent the summer at the chateau with a brilliant company; in the autumn she journeyed to Italy accompanied by Schlegel and Sismondi, and there gathered the materials of her most famous work, Corinne, whose main protagonist was inspired by the Italian poet Diodata Saluzzo Roero.

She returned in the summer of 1805, and spent nearly a year in writing Corinne; in 1806 she broke the decree of exile and lived for a time undisturbed near Paris. In 1807 Corinne, the first aesthetic romance not written in German, appeared. It is in fact, what it was described as being at the time of its appearance, a picaresque tour couched in the form of a novel. The famous quote, “Tout comprendre rend tr��s-indulgent”, commonly translated as “To know all is to forgive all”, is found in Corinne, Book 18, chapter 5.

The publication was taken as a reminder of her existence, and the police of the empire sent her back to Coppet. She stayed there as usual for the summer, and then set out once more for Germany, visiting Mainz, Frankfurt, Berlin and Vienna. She was again at Coppet in the summer of 1808 (in which year Constant broke with her, subsequently marrying Charlotte von Hardenberg, niece of Karl August von Hardenberg) and set to work at her book, De l’Allemagne. It took her nearly the whole of the next two years, during which she did not travel much or far from her own house.

She had bought property in America and thought of moving there, but she was determined to publish De l’Allemagne in Paris. Straining under French censorship, she wrote to the emperor a provoking and perhaps undignified letter. Napoleon’s mean-spirited reply to her letter was the condemnation of the whole edition of her book (ten thousand copies) as not French, and her own exile from the country.

She retired once more to Coppet, where she was not at first interfered with, and she found consolation in a young officer of Swiss origin named Albert de Rocca, twenty-three years her junior, whom she married privately in 1811. The intimacy of their relations could escape no one at Coppet, but the fact of the marriage (which seems to have been happy enough) was not certainly known till after her death. They had one son, Louis-Alphonse de Rocca (1812���1842), who would marry Marie-Louise-Antoinette de Rambuteau, daughter of Claude-Philibert Barthelot de Rambuteau.

The operations of the imperial police in regard to Mme de Sta��l are rather obscure. She was at first left undisturbed, but by degrees the chateau itself became taboo, and her visitors found themselves punished heavily. Mathieu de Montmorency and Mme R��camier were exiled for the crime of seeing her; and she at last began to think of doing what she ought to have done years before and withdrawing herself entirely from Napoleon’s sphere. In the complete subjection of the Continent which preceded the Russian War this was not so easy as it would have been earlier, and she remained at home during the winter of 1811, writing and planning. On 23 May she left Coppet almost secretly, and journeyed through Bern, Innsbruck and Salzburg on her way to Vienna. There she obtained an Austrian passport to the frontier, and after some fears and trouble, receiving a Russian passport in Galicia, she at last escaped from Napoleon’s omnipotent eyes and far reach.

She journeyed slowly through Russia and Finland to Sweden, making a stay at Saint Petersburg, spent the winter in Stockholm, and then set out for England. Here she received a brilliant reception and was much lionized during the season of 1813. She published De l’Allemagne in the autumn, was saddened by the death of her second son Albert, who had entered the Swedish army and fell in a duel brought on by gambling, undertook her Consid��rations sur la r��volution fran��aise, and when Louis XVIII had been restored returned to Paris.

She was in Paris when the news of Napoleon’s landing arrived and at once fled to Coppet, but a singular story, much discussed, is current of her having approved Napoleon’s return. There is no direct evidence of it, but the conduct of her close ally Constant may be quoted in its support, and it is certain that she had no affection for the Bourbons. In October, after Waterloo, she set out for Italy, not only for the advantage of her own health but for that of her second husband, Rocca, who was dying of consumption.

Her daughter married Duke Victor de Broglie on 20 February 1816, at Pisa, and became the wife and mother of French statesmen of distinction. The whole family returned to Coppet in June, and Lord Byron now frequently visited Mme. de Sta��l there. Despite her increasingly ill-health she returned to Paris for the winter of 1816-1817, and her salon was much frequented. A warm friendship sprang up between Mme. de Sta��l and the Duke of Wellington, whom she had first met in 1814, and she used her influence with him to have the size of the Army of Occupation greatly reduced. But she had already become confined to her room if not to her bed. She died on 14 July, and Rocca survived her little more than six months. Her deathbed conversion to Roman Catholicism surprised many, including Wellington, who remarked that while she was greatly afraid of death he had thought her incapable of believing in the afterlife.

Auguste Comte included Madame de Sta��l in his Calendar of Great Men. In a book with the same name, Comte’s disciple Frederic Harrison wrote about Sta��l and her works: “In Delphine a woman, for the first time since the Revolution, reopened the romance of the heart which was in vogue in the century preceding. Comte would daily recite the sentence from Delphine, ‘There is nothing real in the world but love.’ [Pos. Pol. iv. 44). Our thoughts and our acts, he said, can only give us happiness through results: and results are not often in our own control. Feeling is entirely within our power; and it gives us a direct source of happiness, which nothing outside can take away.” Her works, Harrison wrote, “precede the works of Scott, Byron, Shelley, and partly of Chateaubriand, their historical importance is great in the development of modern Romanticism, of the romance of the heart, the delight in nature, and in the art, antiquities, and history of Europe.”

Works

Delphine, 1803 edition.


Journal de Jeunesse, 1785
Sophie ou les sentiments secrets, 1786 (published anonymously in 1790)
Jane Gray, 1787 (published in 1790)
Lettres sur les ouvrages et le caract��re de J.-J. Rousseau, 1788
��loge de M. de Guibert
�� quels signes peut-on reconna��tre quelle est l’opinion de la majorit�� de la nation?
R��flexions sur le proc��s de la Reine, 1793
Zulma��: fragment d’un ouvrage, 1794
R��flexions sur la paix adress��es �� M. Pitt et aux Fran��ais, 1795
R��flexions sur la paix int��rieure
Recueil de morceaux d��tach��s (comprenant��: ��p��tre au malheur ou Ad��le et ��douard, Essai sur les fictions et trois nouvelles��: Mirza ou lettre d’un voyageur, Ad��la��de et Th��odore et Histoire de Pauline), 1795
De l’influence des passions sur le bonheur des individus et des nations, 1796
Des circonstances actuelles qui peuvent terminer la R��volution et des principes qui doivent fonder la R��publique en France
De la litt��rature dans ses rapports avec les institutions sociales, 1799
Delphine, 1802
��p��tres sur Naples
Corinne ou l’Italie, 1807
Agar dans le d��sert
Genevi��ve de Brabant
La Sunamite
Le capitaine Kernadec ou sept ann��es en un jour (com��die en deux actes et en prose)
La signora Fantastici
Le mannequin (com��die)
Sapho
De l’Allemagne, 1810/1813
R��flexions sur le suicide, 1813
De l’esprit des traductions
Consid��rations sur les principaux ��v��nements de la R��volution fran��aise, depuis son origine jusques et compris le 8 juillet 1815, 1818 (posthumously)

Regency Personalities Series-Thomas North Graves 2nd Baron Graves

Regency Personalities Series

In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the��many period notables.

Thomas North Graves 2nd Baron Graves

28 May 1775 ��� 7 February 1830

Thomas North Graves 2nd Baron Graves was a British peer and Member of Parliament.

Graves was the son of Admiral Thomas Graves, 1st Baron Graves. He succeeded his father as second Baron Graves in 1802, but as this was an Irish peerage it did not entitle him to an automatic seat in the House of Lords. He was instead elected to the House of Commons for Okehampton in 1812, a seat he held until 1818, and then represented Windsor from 1819 to 1820 and Milborne Port from 1820 to 1827, when he retired from the Commons to become one of His Majesty’s Commissioners of Revenue of Excise. He was also a Lord of the Bedchamber and Comptroller of the Household to His Royal Highness Ernest Augustus, 1st Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale.

Lord Graves married Lady Mary Paget, daughter of Henry Bayly Paget, 1st Earl of Uxbridge, in 1803. They had eight children, two sons and six daughters. He committed suicide in February 1830, aged 54, after reports that his wife was having an affair with the Duke of Cumberland. An accusation that was believed to be spread by the Whigs for political motive. (DWW-which makes it particularly nasty given the outcome.) He was succeeded in the barony by his eldest son Thomas. Lady Graves died in 1835.